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Harvard. Labor Organization and Collective Bargaining. Dunlop, 1947.

 

 

John T. Dunlop’s course reading lists go on for pages. He mediated, arbitrated and advised besides teaching courses in labor relations including this post of material for his undergraduate course on unions and collective bargaining. His New York Times’ obituary closes with a nice 1973 quote published in Fortune Magazine: “Unless you can work out a consensus on a problem, it’s not a very good solution.” I guess we just now live in an age of diminished solutions. Material for next semester’s course 81b “Labor and Public Policy” has been posted as well.

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Course Enrollment for Economics 81a, Fall Term 1947

[Economics] 81a. Associate Professor Dunlop.–Trade Unionism and Collective Bargaining (F).

3 Graduates, 80 Seniors, 64 Juniors, 25 Sophomores, 15 Radcliffe: Total 187.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1947-48, p. 90.

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OUTLINE
Economics 81a
Fall, 1947

LABOR ORGANIZATION AND COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

I.  Labor and Management Organization

    1. The Institutional Setting
      1. The Beginnings of Organization
      2. The Relation of Labor Organization to “Capitalist” Society
      3. The Characteristics of the Labor Market
    2. Development of the American Labor Movement
      1. Comparisons with other Countries
      2. Theories of Labor Organization Development
      3. Relation to the Growth of the American Economy
      4. Role of Community Values, Ideas, Legal Concepts, and Politics
    3. Structure and Government of Labor Organizations
      1. Constitutional Government of the AFL and CIO
      2. Relations of Locals to International Bodies
      3. Labor Leadership
      4. Administrative Aspects of Labor Organizations
    4. Management Organization in Industrial Relations
      1. The Locus of Policy Making Affecting Industrial Relations
      2. Management Organization for Bargaining
      3. Management Leadership

II.  Operation and Results of Collective Bargaining

  1. The Bargaining Process: Mechanics
    1. The Collective Bargaining Agreement
    2. The Scope and Area of Bargaining
    3. Techniques of Bargaining
  2. The Results on the Social Structure of a Work Community
  3. The Results on the Conditions of Employment
    1. Status of Union Members
    2. Division of Work Opportunities
    3. Procedures for Settling Disputes
  4. The effects on Wages, Prices and Employment
    1. Wage Determination under Collective Bargaining vs. the “Free Market”
    2. Effects on the Shares of Real Income
    3. Effects on Income and Employment Over Time
  5. The Problem of Wage and Price Policies at Full Employment
  6. The Impact on the Social Structure and the Political “Balance of Power” in the Nation

III.  Public Policy Issues Raised by Labor and Management Organization and Collective Bargaining

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Economics 81 a
Questions

  1. How do you account for the emergence of labor organizations? What are the distinctive features of the American labor movement?
  2. To what extent is the American labor movement devoted to changing or preserving “capitalist” institutions?
  3. What standards would you establish to appraise the extent to which a particular labor organization was “democratic”?
  4. What are the possibilities of “peace” within the labor movement? What are the principal obstacles to effective unity?
  5. What are the principal changes introduced into a work community by a labor organization? What changes typically take place in the management of the company?
  6. What is collective bargaining? What is its scope? What problems and rights question, if any, are exclusively “prerogatives” of a union or a management?
  7. What are the effects of collective bargaining on wages, prices, national income and the share of income going to various groups?
  8. To what extent can the opposition of interest between employees and unions be relied upon to protect the public interest?
  9. What scope would you give to the principle of seniority in layoff? In promotion?
  10. Can union support be elicited to improve methods of production and to reduce costs? If so, how?
  11. The area of bargaining has been growing. What are the consequences of industry-wide bargaining?
  12. How would you appraise the following as principles of wage determination: the cost of living, ability to pay, productivity, wage rates in “comparable” firms and operations?
  13. What should a “theory of wages” attempt to do? What do you understand by marginal productivity?
  14. Is collective bargaining compatible with economic stability? May wages and prices be pushed up, of necessity, so rapidly as to result in instability in output and employment?
  15. In view of long-term tendencies at work in our society, what kind of economic institutions and labor relations to you foresee 50 years from now?
  16. The influence of labor organizations in the American social or political life has increased very materially in recent years. Why?

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Required and Recommended Reading

I.  LABOR AND MANAGEMENT ORGANIZATION

  1. The Institutional Setting

Required Reading:

Bakke, E. Wight, Mutual Survival, The Goal of Unions and Management, pp. 1-82

Golden, C., and Ruttenberg, H., the Dynamics of Industrial Democracy, pp. 1-47

Leiserson, W. L., “The Role of Government in Industrial Relations,” Industrial Disputes and the Public Interest, pp. 35-51, (Institute of Industrial Relations, University of California)

Simons, Henry C., “Some Reflections on Syndicalism,” Journal of Political Economy, March, 1944, pp. 1-25

Slichter, Sumner H., The Challenge of Industrial Relations, pp. 1-28

Recommended Reading:

Brooks, R. R., As Steel Goes, pp. 1-20

Halevy, Elie, The Growth of Philosophical Radicalism

Hammond, J. L., and B., The Town Labourer, 1780-1832, Chap. 2, 10-15

Hobson, John A., The Evolution of Modern Capitalism

Hovell, Mark, The Chartist Movement, pp. 1-98

Lenin, V. I., What Is To Be Done?, pp. 31-93

Lester, R. A., Economics of Labor, pp. 3-49

Perlman, Selig, A Theory of the Labor Movement

Pound, Roscoe, Social Control Through Law

Schumpeter, Joseph A., Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy

Shaw, George B., An Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism

Veblen, Theory of the Business Enterprise, Chapter 8

Wadsworth, A. P., and Mann, Julia, The Cotton Trade and Industrial Lancashire, 1600-1780, pp. 311-408

Webb, Sidney and Beatrice, Industrial Democracy

Webb, Sidney and Beatrice, The History of Trade Unionism, pp. 1-112

Whitehead, A. N., Adventures in Ideas

  1. The Development of the American Labor Movement

Required Reading:

Harris, Herbert, American Labor, pp. 1-95

Commons, John R., and Associates, History of Labor in the United States, Vol. II, pp. 332-429

Millis, H. A., and Montgomery, R. E., Organized Labor, pp. 76-242

The United Steelworkers of America, The First Ten Years

Recommended Reading:

Bimba, A., The Molly Maguires

Brissenen, Paul, The I.W.W.

David, Henry, The History of the Haymarket Affair

Dunlop, John T., “The Changing Status of Labor,” The Growth of the American Economy, Edited by H. F. Williamson, pp. 607-31

Fine, Nathan, Labor and Farmer Parties in the United States, 1828-1928

Foner, P. S. History of the Labor Movement in the United States

Foster, William Z., From Bryan to Stalin

Frey, S. P., Craft Unions of Ancient and Modern Times

Galenson, Walter, Rival Unionism in the United States

Gluck, Elsie, John Mitchell, Miner

Gompers, Samuel, Seventy Years of Life and Labor

Grossman, Jonathan, William Sylvis, Pioneer of American Labor

Hollander, J. H., and Barnett, G. E., Studies in American Trade Unionism

Hoxie, Robert F., Trade Unionism in the United States

Jamison, Stuart, Labor Unionism in American Agriculture, Bulletin 836, Bureau of Labor Statistics

Lorwin, L. L., The American Federation of Labor

McCabe, D. A., National Collective Bargaining in the Pottery Industry

Morris, Richard B., Government and Labor in Early America

Perlman, S. and Taft, P., History of Labor in the United States, 1896-1932

Powderly, T. V., The Path I Trod

Roberts, Bryn, The American Labour Split and Allied Unity

Stolberg, Benjamin, Tailor’s Progress

Ware, Norman, Labor in Modern Economic Society

White, Kenneth, Labour and Democracy in the United States

Wolman, Leo, Ebb and Flow of Trade Unionism

Suggested Reading on Foreign Labor Movements

Cole, G. D. H., A Short History of the British Working Class Movement

Foenander, O. R, Towards Industrial Peace in Australia

Marquand, H. A., Laborer on Four Continents

Norgren, Paul, The Swedish Collective Bargaining System

Robbins, J. J., The Government of Labor Relations in Sweden

Webb, Sidney and Beatrice, Industrial Democracy

Webb, Sidney and Beatrice, Soviet Communism: A New Civilization?

Webb, Sidney and Beatrice, The History of Trade Unionism

Ehrmann, H. W., French Labor From Popular Front To Liberation

Wunderlich, F., German Labor Courts

Cole, G. H. and Postgate, R. W., British People, 1746-1947

Wunderlich, Frieda, Labor Under German Democracy, Arbitration 1918-33

Gualtieri, H. L., Labor Movement in Italy

Fitzpatrick, B. C., Short History of the Australian Labor Movement

Snow, H. F., Chinese Labor Movement

Hubbard, L. M., Soviet Labor and Industry

  1. Structure and Government of Labor Organizations

Required Reading:

Herberg, Will, “Bureaucracy and Democracy in Labor Unions,” Antioch Review, Fall 1943, pp. 405-17

Millis, H. A., and Montgomery, R. E., Organized labor, pp. 243-320

Mills, C. Wright, “The Trade Union Leader: A Collective Portrait,” Public Opinion Quarterly, Summer, 1945, pp. 158-75

The Constitutions of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations

Slichter, Sumner H., The Challenge of Industrial Relations, pp. 99-123

Taft, Philip, “Opposition to Union Officers in Elections,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February, 1944, pp. 256-64; “Judicial Procedure in Labor Unions,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, May, 1945, pp. 370-85; “Dues and Initiation Fees in Labor Unions,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 1946, pp. 219-32

Boyer, Richard O., “Profiles, Union President” in The New Yorker, July 6, 1946, pp.22-30; July 13, 1946, pp. 30-42; July 20, 1946, pp. 26-35

Recommended Reading:

Brazeal, B. R., The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters

Brown, L. C., Union Policies in the Leather Industry

Carsel, Wilfred, A History of the Chicago Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union

Chicago Joint Board, The Clothing Workers of Chicago, 1910-1912

Christenson, Collective Bargaining in Chicago; 1929-30

Green, Charles H., The Headwear Workers

Henig, Harry, The Brotherhood of Railway Clerks

Hill, Samuel E., Teamsters and Transportation

Hoxie, Robert F., Trade Unionism in the United States, pp. 177-87

Jensen, Vernon H., Lumber and Labor

LaMar, Elden, Philadelphia Clothing Workers

Levine, Louis, The Women’s Garment Workers

McCaleb, Walter F., Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen

Minton, Bruce and Stuart, John, Men Who Lead Labor

Mulcaire, Michael A., International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers

Northrup, Herbert, Organized Labor and the Negro

Northrup, H. R., Unionization of Professional Engineers and Chemists

Northrup, H. R., “The Tobacco Workers International Union,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 1942

Painter, Leonard, Through Fifty Years with the Brotherhood Railway Carmen of America

Powell, Isona M., The History of the United Typothetae of America

Rubin, Jay and Obermeier, M. J., The Life and Times of Edward Floro

Ryan, Frederick L., Industrial Relations in the San Francisco Building Trades

Seidman, Joel, Labor Czars

Seidman, Joel, The Needle Trades

Soule, George, Sidney Hillman

Stolbert, Benjamin, Tailor’s Progress

Strong, Earl D., Amalgamated Clothing Workers

Wechsler, J. A., Labor Baron, Portrait of John L. Lewis

  1. Management Organization in Industrial Relations

Required Reading:

Roethlisberger, F. S., Management and Morale, pp. 88-134

Twentieth Century Fund, Trends in Collective Bargaining, pp. 22-33

Hill, L. H. and Hook, C. R., Jr., Management at the Bargaining Table, pp. 56-138

Pigors, Paul and Meyers, Charles A., Personnel Administration, (pages to be assigned)

Recommended Reading:

Baker, Helen, The Determination and Administration of Industrial Policies

Barnard, Chester I., The Functions of the Executive

Gardiner, Glenn, When Foremen and Stewards Bargain

Gordon, R. A., Business Leadership in the Large Corporation

National Research Council, Fatigue of Workers, Its Relation to Industrial Production

Riegel, John W., Management, Labor and Technological Change

Scott, Walter D., Clothier, Mathewson, Spriegel, Personnel Management, Principles, Practices, and Points of View

Yoder, Dale, Personnel Management and Industrial Relations

II. OPERATIONS AND RESULTS OF COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

  1. The Bargaining Process: Mechanics

Required Reading:

Peterson, Florence, American Labor Unions, pp. 187-210

Selected Agreements

Settling Plant Grievances, Bulletin 60, Division of Labor Standards

Recommended Reading:

Block, Louis, Labor Agreements in Coal Mines, pp. 71-124.

Hamburger, L., “The Extension of Collective Agreements to Cover Entire Trades and Industries,” International Labour Review, August, 1939, pp. 166-94

Lieberman, Elias, The Collective Labor Agreement, pp. 3-34

National Foremen’s Institute, How To Handle Collective Bargaining Negotiations

National Labor Relations Board, Written Trade Agreements, Bulletin No. 4

Pipin, Marshall, “Enforcement of Rights under Collective Bargaining Agreements,” University of Chicago Law Review, June, 1939

Updegraff, C. M., and McCoy, W. P., Arbitration of Labor Disputes

  1. The Results on the Social Structure of a Work Community

Required Reading:

Mayo, Elton, The Social Problems of an Industrial Civilization, pp. 59-112

Selekman, Benjamin M., “When the Union Enters,” Harvard Business Review, Winter, 1945, pp. 129-43

Selekman, Benjamin M., Labor Relations and Human Relations, (pages to be assigned)

Golden, Clinton S., and Ruttenberg, H. J., The Dynamics of Industrial Democracy, pp. 190-291

Recommended Reading:

Mayo, Elton, Human Problems of an Industrial Civilization

Moore, W. E., Industrial Relations and the Social Order

Robinson, G. Canby, “The Patient as a Person, The Social Aspects of Illness,” in Modern Attitudes in Psychiatry, pp. 43-60

Roethlesberger, F. J. and Dickson, W. J., Management and the Worker

Warner, W. Lloyd and Low, J. O., The Social System of the Modern Factory The Strike: A Social Analysis

Whitehead, T. N., Leadership in a New Society

  1. The Results on the Conditions of Employment

Required Reading:

Slichter, Sumner H., Union Policies and Industrial Management, pp. 1-8, 53-136, 164-200, 241-81, 282-310, 572-79

Kennedy, Van Dusen, Union Policy and Incentive Wage Methods, pp. 50-104

National Industrial Conference Board, Job Evaluation, Formal Plans for Determining Basic Pay Differentials, pp. 1-12, 21-24

Twentieth Century Fund, How Collective Bargaining Works, pp. 227-79, 450-507

Recommended Reading:

Barnett, G. C., Chapters on Machinery and Labor

Drake, Leonard A., Trends in the New York Printing Industry

Haber, William, Industrial Relations in the Building Industry

Hill, Samuel E., Teamsters and Transportation

Jensen, Vernon H., Lumber and Labor

Lahne, Herbert J., The Cotton Mill Worker

Lytle, Charles W., Wage Incentive Methods, pp. 67-135

Morton, Thomas L., Trade Union Policies in the Massachusetts Shoe Industry

Ober, Harry, Trade Union Policy and Technological Change, (W.P.A., National Research Project)

Palmer, Gladys, Union Tactics and Economic Change

Patterson, W. F. and Hodges, M. H., Educating for Industry, Policies and Procedures for a National Apprenticeship System

Randall, Roger, Labor Relations in the Pulp and Paper Industry of the Pacific Northwest

Roberts, Harold S., The Rubber Workers

Ross, Murray, Stars and Strikes, Unionization of Hollywood

Seidman, Joel, The Needle Trades

  1. The Effects on Wages, Prices and Employment

Required Readings:

Boulding, Kenneth, Economic Analysis, pp. 485-511

Slichter, Sumner H., Basic Criteria Used in Wage Negotiation

Federal Reserve Board, Federal Reserve Bulletin, July 1947 “Consumer Incomes and Liquid Asset Holdings”

Slichter, Sumner H., “The Responsibility of Organized Labor for Employment,” American Economic Review, May 1945, pp. 193-208

Dunlop, J. T., Wage Determination Under Trade Unions, pp. 8-27, 45-73, 95-121 “American Wage Deterination: The Trend And Its Significance”

Clark, J. M., “The Relation of Wages to Progress” in The Conditions of Industrial Progress (Wharton School of Finance and Commerce), pp. 22-39

Recommended Reading:

    1. Wage and Employment Relations

Bissell, R. M., “Price and Wage Policies and the Theory of Employment,” Econometrica, June 1940, pp. 199-239

Cannan, Edwin, “The Demand for Labor,” Economic Journal, 1932

Carlson, Sune, A Study on the Pure Theory of Production

Douglas, Paul H., The Theory of Wages, pp. 113-58

Douglas, Paul H., “Wage Theory and Wage Policy,” International Labour Review, March 1939

Fellner, William and Haley, B. F., Editors, Readings in the Theory of Distribution

Hansen, Alvin H., Economic Policy and Full Employment

Hicks, J. R., Theory of Wages, pp. 1-38, 58-110

Keynes, J. M., The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (especially Chapter 19)

Lederer, Emil, “Industrial Fluctuations and Wage Policy: Some Unsettled Points,” International Labour Review, January, 1939.

Lester, Richard A., “Shortcomings of Marginal Analysis for Wage Employment Problems,” American Economic Review, March 1946, pp. 63-82

Mendershausen, H., “On the Significance of Professor Douglas’ Production Function,” Econometrica, October 1939

Machlup, Fritz, “Marginal Analysis and Empirical Research,” American Economic Review, September 1946, pp. 519-54

Pigou, A. C., The Economics of Welfare, 4th edition, pp. 451-61, 531-71, 647-55

Pigou, A. C., The Theory of Unemployment, pp. 1-108

Pigou, A. C., Lapses from Full Employment

Pool, A. G., Wage Policy in Relation to Industrial Fluctuations

Reynolds, Lloyd G., “Relations between Wage Rates, Costs, and Prices,” American Economic Review, Supplement, March 1942, pp. 275-89

Robertson, D. H., “Wage Grumbles,” in Economic Fragments

Robinson, Joan, Essays in the Theory of Employment, pp. 1-104

Stigler, George J., Production and Distribution Theories, The Formative Period

Walker, E. R., “Wage Policy and Business Cycles,” International Labour Review, December 1938

Wermel, Michael T., The Evolution of the Classical Wage Theory

    1. Wage Movements and Productivity

Ahearn, Daniel J., The Wages of Farm and Factory Laborers, 1914-1944

Bell, Spurgeon, Productivity: Wages and National Income

Bowden, Witt, “Wages, Hours and Productivity of Industrial Labor, 1909 to 1939” Monthly Labor Review, September 1940, pp. 517-44

Douglas, Paul H., Real Wages in the United States, 1890-1926

Ducoff, Louis J., Wages of Agricultural Labor in the United States, Technical Bulletin 895, Department of Agriculture

Fabricant, Solomon, Labor Savings in American industry 1899-1939

Lederer, Emil, Technical Progress and Unemployment

Lester, Richard A. and Robie, Edward A., Wages Under National and Regional Collective Bargaining

    1. Share in National Income

Dunlop, J. T., Wage Determination Under Trade Unions, pp. 141-91

Kalecki, Michael, Essays in the Theory of Economic Fluctuations

Kuznets, Simon, National Income and Its Composition, 1919-38, Vol. I, pp. 215-65

Pigou, A. C., Economics of Welfare, pp. 619-41

Survey of Current Business, June 1947 (Supplement)

    1. Size Distribution of Income

Bowman, Mary Jean, “A Graphical Analysis of Personal Income Distribution in the United States,” American Economic Review, September 1945, pp. 607-28

Clark, Colin, The Conditions of Economic Progress, Chapter 12

Mendershausen, Horst, Changes in Income Distribution During the Great Depression

National Resources Committee, Consumer Incomes in the United States

Staehle, Hans, “Short Period Variations in the Distribution of Incomes,” Review of Economic Statistics, 1937

    1. The Annual Wage

Latimer, Murray W., Guaranteed Wages, Report to the President by the Advisory Board, OWMR (See Appendix F for economic analysis by Hansen and Samuelson)

Snider, Joseph, Guarantee of Work and Wages

Leontief, Wassily, “The Pure Theory of the Guaranteed Annual Wage Contract,” Journal of Political Economy, February 1946.

  1. The Problem of Wage and Price Policies at Full Employment

Recommended Reading:

Leontief, W., “Wages, Profit and Prices,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, November, 1946, pp. 26-39

Fellner, W. J., Monetary Policies and Full Employment

Lange, Oscar, Price Flexibility and Full Employment

Dunlop, John T., “Wage-Price Relations at High Level Employment,” American Economic Review, Proceedings, May, 1947, pp. 243-53

  1. The Impact on the Social Structure and the Political “Balance of Power” in the Nation

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. (HUC 8522.2.1) Box 4, Folder “Economics, 1947-48 (2 of 2)”.

 

Image Source: Cigar box label from the collections of the Museum of the City of New York.

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Curriculum Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Advanced Economic Theory. Franco Modigliani, 1957-8

During the academic year 1957-58 Wassily Leontief was on academic leave from Harvard and Franco Modigliani of the Carnegie Institute of Technology took a leave of absence to accept a visiting professorship filling in for Leontief. From Modigliani’s papers in the Rosenstein Library of Duke University I have been able to piece together outlines and readings for the two semesters of advanced economic theory that he taught.

For the Summer session and Fall semester of 1957 it is possible to construct a topical outline for the first semester of Harvard’s Economics 202 from Modigliani’s own handwritten notes. We see that the outline matches that of the corresponding course “Advanced Economics I” that Modigliani taught in the spring semesters of 1957 and 1959 at his home university, i.e. before and after his year at Harvard. We note some additions and deletions in the readings for Modigliani’s Carnegie Tech courses, but since the outline was not significantly changed, it is reasonable to assume that his Fall Semester reading list at Harvard was some “average” of these two Carnegie Tech courses. A copy of Modigliani’s exam questions for the first semester of Advanced Economic Theory (January 25, 1958) completes the material for the first semester.

For the Spring semester of 1958 we have a cover page to his lecture notes indicating four broad topics to be covered. For three of the topics I found short mimeographed reading lists in another folder in a different box of Modigliani’s papers. For the topic “Money and Keynesian Economics” there is a two page handwritten outline that precedes his lecture notes. I cannot explain why the first semester covers parts I-IV and the second semester apparently begins with part VI.

 

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Course Enrollment

[Economics] 202. Advanced Economic Theory. Professor Modigliani (Carnegie Institute of Technology). Full Course.

(F)      1 Junior, 1 Senior, 29 Graduates, 4 Radcliffe, 3 Other: Total 38
(S)      1 Junior, 1 Senior, 27 Graduates, 3 Radcliffe, 4 Other: Total 36

 

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments, 1957-58, p. 82.

 

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Modigliani Outline for Fall Semester, 1957 (Handwritten)

Ec. Analysis I
Summer & Fall 1957 Harvard

Outline

Part I. Methodology.

(A) Subject matter and the areas

(B) The methodology of positive economics and of Welfare economics

(C) Discussion of types of model and sequence of presentation

Part II. Theory of Demand and application

II(a) Partial Equilibrium Analysis-Demand function and application

(A) The law of demand and the description of demand functions

(1) The law of demand
(2) Cournot formulation. The notion of functions and some mathematics
(3) The slope of demand functions and responsiveness
(4) Criticism of slope as measure of responsiveness
(5) The notion of demand elasticity and its computation
(6) The behavior of total outlays and its relation to η

(B) Application to problem of random supply. Price and income variation and stabilization.

(C) Application to the elementary theory of Monopoly.

(1) Nature of the model
(2) The case of no costs. Total curves
(3) Graphical computation of MR
(4) η and MR
(5) Fixed costs. Comp. Statics
(6) Effect of Taxes
(7) Introduction of costs. Equilibrium Analysis
(8) Comparative Statics and Taxation

II (b) Utility Analysis

(A) Introduction

(1) Utility and M.U. The Marshallian approach
(2) Shortcoming. The alternative approach.

(B) Indifference Approach

(1) The fundamental postulates
(2) Graphical Representation of tastes
(3) Indifference map and utility function
(4) Slope of I.C.—m.r. of s. and expression in terms of m.u.
(5) Generalizations and the role of two commodities
(6) Types of indifference maps.
(7) The opportunity set. The case of perfect markets
(8) Pathological cases and the law of d.m.r. of s.
(9) Effect of variation in income. Engel curves
(10) Effect of variations in prices. The demand curve
(11) The case of two commodities; income derived from the commodities. Demand and supply.
(12) Generalization to n commodities; complementarity and substitution

(C) Applications of utility analysis

(1) Consumers surplus
(2) Elements of Index number theory

II (c) General Equilibrium of Exchange.

(A) Nature of Problem and approach.

(1) What we wish to explain
(2) Nature of model’s assumptions.

(B) The two person, two commodity case.

(1) The Edgeworth Box.
(2) The offer curves
(3) The behavior of excess demand as function of p and competitive equilibrium (normal case) [illegible] market
(4) The relation between Ex and Ey. Walras law.
(5) Multiple intersection of offer curves. Stable and unstable equilbria. The correspondence Principle.
(6) The pure monopoly solutions.
(7) Comparison of competitive and monopoly solution. Welfare maximization.
(8) The Pareto locus and the Weak Welfare ordering.
(9) Necessary and sufficient condition for max. welfare under individualistic welfare function. The [illegible word] feasibility function. Every point on Pareto locus achievable by perfect market, lump sum taxes and subsidies.
(10) Comparative statics.
(11) Uses of Edgeworth Diagram in the study of barter and bilateral monopoly

(C) General Equilibrium of Exchange

III. Theory of supply and production

(A) Introduction

(1) Nature of production and relation to consumption and exchange model.
(2) The organization of production and the nature of the firm in the model.
(3) Factors of production; general notions and the classical dichotomy[?]
(4) Profit maximization and the definition of profit.

(B) Production functions and cost functions.

B(I). One output and two inputs.

(1) Three dimensional representation.
(2) A single variable factor. Product curve.
(3) The cost curve

B(II). Two variable inputs

(1) Determination of equilibrium can be broken up into two parts. Cost minimization, and choice of best output along the minimized cost function.
(2) Cost minimization.

[(C) Supply function]

(1) Long run cost functions and returns to scale
(2) The long run supply curve
(3) Short run costs and supply curves

IV. Market Structures.

(A) Classification of Markets

(B) Monopolistic competition.

(1) Equilibrium for the firm
(2) Simultaneous equilibrium of the group.
(3) Essential characteristics of equilibrium in relation to monopoly and perfect competition, welfare aspects.
(4) Relaxation of the pure model.
(5) Forces making for [illegible] higher prices

(C) Oligopoly with homogeneous selling and no free entry

(1) Duopoly, Cournot solution
(2) Oligopoly and the limit solution as n goes to infinity

 

Source: Duke University, Rubenstein Library. Franco Modigliani Papers. Box T6. Folder “Economics 1956-57”

 

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Mimeographed Course Outline,
Carnegie Institute of Technology 1957

February, 1957

GI-581—Advanced Economics I
Course Outline and Major References (Provisional)

I. Methodological issues:

(1) Kaufman — Methodology of the Social Sciences
(2) Friedman — Essays in Positive Economics — Part I
(3) Robbins — The Nature and Significance of Economic Science

II. Theory of Demand and Applications

(A) Partial equilibrium approach — Marshallian Demand functions and applications to simple monopoly.

(B) General equilibrium approach — Utility analysis and indifference curves

(C) General equilibrium of exchange: (i) the two person, two commodity case; (ii) the general case

(1) Marshall — Principles of Economics, Book III, Ch. III and IV; Mathematical Appendix, Notes II and III
(2) Cournot — The Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth, Ch. IV, V, VI
(3) Bowley — The Mathematical Groundwork of Economics, Ch. I
(4) Hicks — Value and Capital, Part I (pages 12-52) and Part II, ch. IV and V.
(5) Mosak — General Equilibrium Theory in International Trade, Ch. 1 and 2
(6) Samuelson — Foundations of Economic Analysis, Ch. 1, 5, 6, 7
(7) Slutsky — On the Theory for the Budget of the Consumer, Readings in Price Theory
(8) Hicks — Revision of Demand Theory

III. Theory of supply and costs under competitive conditions

(A) Partial equilibrium approach — theory of Rent

(B) General equilibrium approach — production functions and marginal productivity

(C) General equilibrium of production and exchange

(D) Some welfare implications

(1) Viner — Cost Curves and Supply Curves, Readings in Price Theory
(2) Stigler — The Theory of Prices
(3) Hicks — Value and Capital, Ch. VI and VII
(4) Mosak — Ch. V
(5) Lerner — The Economics of Control

IV. Imperfect Competition Theories and Market Structures

(A) Theory of monopoly

(B) Small numbers and imperfect competition

(1) Cournot — Ch. 7
(2) Chamberlin — Theory of Monopolistic Competition
(3) Robinson — Economics of Imperfect Competition
(4) Readings in Price Theory, Part V, Imperfect Competition
(5) Hall and Hitch — Price Theory and Business Behavior, Oxford Economic Papers, 1939
(6) Stigler — Notes on the Theory of Duopoly, JPE, 1947, page 521
(7) Fellner — Competition among the Few
(8) Bain — A Note on Pricing in Monopoly and Oligopoly, AER, 1949, page 448
(9) Hurwicz — The Theory of Economic Behavior, Readings in Price Theory
(10) Henderson — The Theory of Duopoly, QJE, December, 1954
(11) Harrod — Economic Essays, The Theory of Imperfect Competition revised
(12) Hicks — The Process of Imperfect Competition, Oxford Economic Papers, 1954
(13) Paul — Notes on Excess Capacity, Oxford Economic Papers, 1954
(14) Hahn — Excess Capacity and Imperfect Competition, Oxford Economic Papers, 1955

Source: Duke University, Rubenstein Library. Franco Modigliani Papers. Box T8. Folder “(Notes on Advanced Monetary Theory III , 1953-1960”.

 

____________________________________

 

Mimeographed Course Outline, Carnegie Institute of Technology 1959

February, 1959

GI-581—Advanced Economics I
Course Outline and Major References

I. Methodological issues:

(1) Kaufman — Methodology of the Social Sciences
(2) Friedman — Essays in Positive Economics — Part I
(3) Robbins — The Nature and Significance of Economic Science

II. Theory of Demand and Applications

(A) Partial equilibrium approach — Marshallian Demand functions and applications to simple monopoly.

(B) General equilibrium approach — Utility analysis and indifference curves.

(C) General equilibrium of exchange: (i) the two person, two commodity case; (ii) the general case

(D) Basic concepts of Welfare Economics. Index number theory.

(1) Marshall — Principles of Economics, Book III, Ch. III and IV; Mathematical Appendix, Notes II and III
(2) Cournot — The Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth, Ch. IV, V, VI
(3) Samuelson — Foundations of Economic Analysis, Ch. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6
(4) Hicks — Value and Capital, Part I (pages 12-52) and Part II, ch. IV and V.
(5) Slutsky — On the Theory for the Budget of the Consumer, Readings in Price Theory
(6) Hicks — Revision of Demand Theory Parts I and II
(7) Bowley — The Mathematical Groundwork of Economics, Ch. I
(8) Mosak — General Equilibrium Theory in International Trade, Ch. 1 and 2
(9) Boulding — Welfare Economics in Survey of Contemporary Economics, vol. II.

III. Theory of supply and costs under competitive conditions

(A) Partial equilibrium approach — theory of Rent

(B) General equilibrium approach — production functions and marginal productivity

(C) General equilibrium of production and exchange under competitive conditions

(D) Some welfare implications

(E) Stability of equilibrium — comparative statics and dynamics.

(1) Viner — Cost Curves and Supply Curves, Readings in Price Theory
(2) Stigler — The Theory of Prices
(3) Samuelson — Foundations chs. 4, 9
(4) Lerner — The Economics of Control chs. 15, 16, 17
(5) Hicks — Value and Capital, Ch. VI and VII
(6) Mosak — Ch. V
(7) Cassel — The Theory of Social Economy Vol I. ch. 4, pp. 134-155

IV. Imperfect Competition Theories and Market Structures

(A) Classification of market structures

(B) Theory of monopoly

(C) Monopolistic competition, large group

(D) Oligopolistic competition

(E) The role of the conditions of entry.

(1) Cournot — Ch. 7
(2) Chamberlin — Theory of Monopolistic Competition
(3) Robinson — Economics of Imperfect Competition, Book V.
(4) Readings in Price Theory, Part V, Imperfect Competition
(5) Hall and Hitch — Price Theory and Business Behavior, Oxford Economic Papers, 1939
(6) Stigler — Notes on the Theory of Duopoly, JPE, 1947, page 521
(7) Fellner — Competition among the Few
(8) Hurwicz — The Theory of Economic Behavior, Readings in Price Theory
(9) Henderson — The Theory of Duopoly, QJE, December, 1954
(10) Bain — Barriers to New Competition. Esp. ch. 1, 3, 4, 6.
(11) Modigliani — New Developments on the Oligopoly Front. JPE June 1958, pp. 215-232.
(12) Cyert and March — Organizational Structure and Pricing Behavior in an Oligopolistic Market. AER March 1955, pp. 129-139
(13) Cyert and March — Organizational Factors in the Theory of Oligopoly. QJE Feb. 1956, pp. 44-64

Source: Duke University, Rubenstein Library. Franco Modigliani Papers. Box T8. Folder “(Notes on Advanced Monetary Theory III , 1953-1960”.

Final Examination for GI 581 in 1959 and 1960 has been posted!

 

____________________________________

Final Examination Economics 202, Fall Semester (1957-58)

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics
ECONOMICS 202

Answer questions 1, 2, and two of the remaining three. Question 1 will be given double weight.

  1. Assume that the government fixes by law the price of a commodity and hands out to the public ration coupons equal in number to the number of units of the commodity produced. Assume throughout that the supply is perfectly inelastic.

a) Show graphically the opportunity locus of an individual consumer, in terms of the usual indifference diagram, with one of the axes representing money. Under what condition would a consumer not use all of his coupons?

b) Show that consumers would be better off if they were free to buy or sell their ration coupons in a free market.

c) Supposing now that coupons could be bought and sold in a free market, explain how one could derive an individual consumer’s demand curve for coupons. (Hint: the situation is analogous to the consumer being forced to buy his ration of the good at the legal price and then being allowed to sell it or buy more of it on a free market.)

d) Explain the formation of the equilibrium market price of coupons.

e) What can be said as to the relation between the legal price, the price of coupons, and the price which would prevail in the absence of price control and rationing? Under what condition would the sum of the first two be equal to the third?

  1. Wicksell states two alternative conditions under which entrepreneurial profits would be zero:

“…either that large-scale and small-scale operations are equally productive, so that, when all the factors of production are increased in the same proportion, the total product also increases exactly proportionately; or at least that all productive enterprises have already reached the limit beyond which a further increase in the scale of production will no longer yield any advantage.”

Explain the reasoning behind Wicksell’s statement of these conditions. Is either of them sufficient, or must other conditions be added?

  1. Discuss the significance of free entry to the relation of the long-run equilibrium size of the firm to its optimum size.
  1. A profit maximizing monopolist buys factors of production in a perfect market.

a) Discuss the long-run effect on his demand for each of the factors he uses and on his selling price of a tax on one of the factors. (Give a graphic treatment for the case of two factors.)

b) Suppose that one of the two factors is fixed in the short run. Contrast the change in the long-run and short-run demand for both factors when a tax is placed on either.

  1. Evaluate the methodological positions of Friedman and Koopmans. Would an agreement with one as against the other make any difference as to the direction of economic research?

January 25, 1958

 

Source: Duke University, Rubenstein Library. Franco Modigliani Papers. Box T8. Folder “(Notes on Advanced Monetary Theory III , 1953-1960”.

 

____________________________________

 

[Handwritten cover page to course lecture notes]

 

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS II
Harvard—Spring 1958
Outline

I. Welfare Economics and Critique of Laisser faire

II. Dynamics with Certainty

III. Theory of Choice Under Uncertainty

IV. Money and Keynesian Economics

 

Source: Duke University, Rubenstein Library. Franco Modigliani Papers. Box T6. Folder “Economics 1956-57”.

 

____________________________________

 

[Two mimeographed sheets of course outline and readings]

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics
Economics 202

Spring, 1958

VI. Economics of Welfare

Readings:

Lerner, A. P., The Economics of Control, Chap. 1-14 (as a review)

Hicks, J. R., “The Foundations of Welfare Economics,” Economic Journal, Dec. 1939.

Scitovsky, T., “A Reconsideration of the Theory of Tariffs,” Review of Economic Studies, Volume 9, 1941

Samuelson, P., “Evaluation of Real National Income,” Oxford Economic Papers, Jan. 1950

J. de V. Graaf, Theoretical Welfare Economics

Baumol, William J., Welfare Economics and the Theory of the State (omit Ch. 8)

Ruggles, N., “The Welfare Basis of Marginal Cost Pricing,” Review of Economic Studies, Vol. XVII, 1949-50.

Vickrey, W., “Some Objections to Marginal Cost Pricing,” JPE, June 1948

*Burk (Bergson) A., “A Reformulation of Certain Aspects of Welfare Economics,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 52, 1938

*Samuelson, P., Foundations of Economic Analysis, Chapter 8

*Koopmans, T. C., Three Essays on the State of Economic Science, I—Allocation of Resources and the Price System.

VII. Dynamics under Certainty

Temporal theory of consumer choice — the notion of interest — inter-temporal equilibrium without production — temporal theory of production and capital — growth

Readings:

Fisher, The Theory of Interest, Chapters II, X, XI, XVI, XVIII.

Hicks, Value and Capital, Chapters IX, X, XI, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII.

Lutz and Lutz, The Theory of Investment of the Firm, Chapters I-X, XII, XV, XX.

Lindahl, Studies in the Theory of Money and Capital, Part III, Ch. 2, 3.

Samuelson, “Dynamics, Statics and the Stationary State,” in Clemence, Readings in Economic Analysis, Vol. I

Modigliani and Brumberg, “Utility Analysis and the Consumption Function,” in Kurihara, Post-Keynesian Economics.

*Mosak, General Equilibrium Theory, Ch. VI, VII.

*Koopmans, Three Essays on the State of Economic Science, Essay I, part 4, (Pp. 105-126).

VIII. Some Approaches to the Theory of Choice under Uncertainty.

Readings:

Arrow, “Alternative Approaches to the Theory of Choice under Uncertainty in Risk-taking Situations,” Econo metrica, 1951.

Modigliani, “Liquidity and Uncertainty,” (Discussion paper) AER, May 1949

Hart, Anticipations, Uncertainty and Dynamic Planning

Marschak, “Probability in the Social Sciences,” in Lazarsfeld, Mathematics 1 Thinking in the Social Sciences.

Friedman and Savage, “The Utility Analysis of Choice Involving Risk,” in Readings in Price Theory.

Strotz, “Cardinal Utility,” AER, May 1953.

Hart, “Risk, Uncertainty, and the Unprofitability of Compounding Probabilities,” in Readings in the Theory of Income Distribution.

*Herstein and Miller, “An Axiomatic Approach to Measurable Utility,” Econometrica, April 1953.

 

Source: Duke University, Rubenstein Library. Franco Modigliani Papers. Box T6. Folder “Economics 1956-57”.

 

____________________________________

 

[Handwritten outline preceding notes for fourth part of second semester]

Money and Keynesian Economics
Outline

I. Introduction of uncertainty and money in dynamic general equilibrium framework

II. The supply and demand for money

(A) Supply side. The banking system and bank balance equation

(B) The demand side

(1) The transaction demand. Cambridge and Fisher equations.
(2) The formal closing of system with dichotomy and neutrality. Criticism. No connection between demand for money and demand for anything else. No [illegible] formal money market
(3) The role of interest rate on transaction demand
(4) Liquidity preference and the connection of Money and Bond market. The formal model of these markets in which funds are acquired or disposed of against bonds.
(5) Preservation of dichotomy under certain assumptions: the role of money in real system. Its disappearance with pure bank money and η =1.
(6) Sources of non-transaction or asset demand for money:

(a) Transaction costs on short funds.
(b) The so called speculative demand.

The case of a single short rate [for the supply of money to equal the demand for money] provided r01 >0.
Liquidity trap. No carrying cost, r cannot be negative.
The case of multiple rates. Speculative demand.

(7) The breakdown of the system. The Pigou effect. its implications on extreme fluctuations of price level.
(8) The consequence of price rigidity.

III. The Economics of rigid prices (rigid wages)

(A) Description of labor market and the [illegible]of rigidity.
(B) The emergence [consequence?] of the notion of Income. Capitalism. Property and non-property income
(C) Nature of demand and supply. Consumption and Investment.
(D) Why wage rigidity [illegible]a solution even when r of full employment is negative. Supply falls faster than demand
(E) The four quadrant analysis and its interpretation.

 

Source: Duke University, Rubenstein Library. Franco Modigliani Papers. Box T6. Folder “Economics 1956-57”.

Image Source: Franco Modigliani page at the History of Economic Thought Website.

Categories
Harvard Suggested Reading

Harvard. Debate Briefs on Immigration, ca. 1886-96

A few posts ago I provided a short selection from Harvard Professor Thomas Nixon Carver’s autobiography that reminded me of the current Republican U.S. Presidential candidate’s immigration policy. I must still have had Donald Trump on the mind when I stumbled upon a book of model debate briefs for issues of the late 19th/early 20th century. One might want to first watch the speech Donald Trump gave on immigration policy last night (August 31, 2016) in Phoenix, Arizona and then examine the debate briefs below for the following three resolutions:

Resolved, That immigration should be further restricted by law.

Resolved, That a high tax should be laid on all immigrants to the United States.

Resolved, That the policy excluding Chinese laborers from the United States should be maintained and rigorously enforced.

Zombie ideas are everywhere. 

 _______________________

Briefs for Debate on Current Political, Economic, and Social Topics.

Edited by
W. Du Bois Brookings, A.B. of the Harvard Law School
And
Ralph Curtis Ringwalt, A.B.
Assistant in Rhetoric in Columbia University

With an introduction by Albert Bushnell Hart, Ph.D.
Professor of Harvard University.

[Rerpinted in 1908]

[From the Preface:]

“The basis of the work has been a collection of some two hundred briefs prepared during the past ten years [ca. 1886-96] by students in Harvard University, under the direction of instructors. Of these briefs the most useful and interesting have been selected; the material has been carefully worked over, and the bibliographies enlarged and verified….

…” the brief is a steady training in the most difficult part of reasoning; in putting together things that belong together; in discovering connections and relations; in subordinating the less important matters. The making of a brief is an intellectual exercise like the study of a disease by a physician, of a case by a lawyer, of a sermon by a minister, of a financial report by a president of a corporation. It is a bit of the practical work of life.

 

RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION.

Question: ‘Resolved, That immigration should be further restricted by law.’

Brief for the Affirmative.

General references:

New-York Tribune (May 17, 1891);
Congressional Record, 1890-1891, p. 2955 (February 19, 1891);
Political Science Quarterly, III., 46 (March, 1888), 197 (June, 1888); IV., 480-489 (September, 1889);
J. A. Riis, How the Other Half Lives;
Richmond Mayo-Smith, Emigration and Immigration;
North American Review, Vol. 152, p. 27 (January, 1891);
Atlantic Monthly, LXXI., 646 (May, 1893);
Public Opinion, XVI., 122 (November 9, 1893);
F. L. Dingley on European Emigration, United States Special Consular Reports, 1890, II., 211.

I. There is no longer any necessity for immigration:

Congressional Record, 1890-1891, p. 2955.

II. Immigration has led to many bad effects.

(a) Political.

(1) Large proportion of adults gives too great voting power:

Emigration and Immigration, p. 79.

(2) Our degraded municipal administration due to it:

Emigration and Immigration, p. 87.

(b) Economic.

(1) Immigrants offset what they produce by remittances home.

(2) Nearly half the immigrants are without occupation and this ratio is still increasing:

Congressional Record, 1890-1891, p. 2955.

(3) There is already a large unemployed class of native laborers:

Emigration and Immigration, p. 127.

(4) Displacement of American labor:

Congressional Record, 1890-1891, p. 2955.

(5) By classes used to a lower standard of living.

(6) Introduction of the system:

How the Other Half Lives, pp. 121-123.

(c) Social effects.

(1) Our high rates of mortality, vice, and crime are due to immigration:

Emigration and Immigration, p. 150.

(2) Immigration the prevailing cause of illiteracy in the United States:

Emigration and Immigration, p. 161.

III. The present laws are insufficient.

(a) Diseased persons are allowed entrance:

Congressional Record, 1890-1891, p. 2955.

(b) Agents for steamship lines induce men to emigrate.

(c) Pauper laws admit immigrants possessing less than the average wealth of residents:

Emigration and Immigration, p. 101.

 

Brief for the Negative.

General references:

North American Review, Vol. 134, p. 347 (April, 1882); Vol. 154, p. 424 (April, 1892); Vol. 158, p. 494 (April, 1894);
Journal of Social Science, 1870, No. 2;
Forum, XIII., 360 (May, 1892).

I. The policy of the United States in regard to immigration has been successful and its continuance is necessary to develop the resources of the country:

Lalor’s Cyclopaedia, II., 85-94.

II. Immigration is an advantage to the country:

North American Review, Vol. 134, pp. 364-367.

(a) The prosperity brought by immigrants.

(b) The addition to the national power of production.

(c) The money value of the immigrants as laborers.

III. The interests of American labor do not suffer by immigration:

Westminster Review, Vol. 130, p. 474 (October, 1888);
J. L. Laughlin in International Review, XI., 88 (July, 1881).

(a) Immigrants form ‘non–competing groups.’

(b) Are ultimately Americanized.

IV. The present immigration laws are satisfactory:

Supplement to the Revised Statutes of the United States, 1874-1891, I., Chap. 551;
Nation, XLV., 518 (December 29, 1887).

(a) The worst class of immigrants is excluded.

(b) The interests of American labor are fully protected.

(c) More stringent regulations, even if desirable, could not be enforced.

 

 _______________________

 

A TAX ON IMMIGRANTS.

Question: ‘Resolved, That a high tax should be laid on all immigrants to the United States.’

Brief for the Affirmative.

General references:

Richmond Mayo-Smith, Emigration and Immigration;
Forum
, XI., 635 (August, 1891); XIV., 110 (September, 1892);
Andover Review, IX., 251 (March, 1888);
Yale Review, I., 125 (August, 1892);
Congressional Record, 1890-1891, p. 2955 (February 19, 1891);
Political Science Quarterly, III., 46 (March, 1888), 197 (June, 1888); IV., 480-489 (September, 1889);
North American Review, Vol. 152, p. 27 (January, 1891);
J. A. Riis, How the Other Half Lives;
F. L. Dingley on European Emigration, in United States Special Consular Reports, 1890, II., 211;
House Miscellaneous Documents, 1887-1888, No. 572, part 2, Report on Importation of Contract Labor.

I. Immigration should be further restricted.

(a) On social grounds.

(1) The proportion of paupers, diseased, and criminal, is great.

(b) On economic grounds.

(1) No longer needed to develop the country:

Popular Science Monthly, XLI., 762 (October, 1892).

(2) The lower wages and the standard of living:

Forum, XIV., 113 (September, 1892).

(3) Unskilled occupations are already overcrowded:

Emigration and Immigration, pp. 117-122.

(c) On political grounds.

(1) The immigrants do not understand our institutions.

(2) They become tools of machine politicians:

Emigration and Immigration, pp. 79-88.

(3) They form communities by themselves.

(d) The dangers are increasing.

(1) The immigrants congregate in cities more than formerly:

Emigration and Immigration, pp. 69-70.

(2) The character of the immigrants is deteriorating:

Yale Review, I., 132.

II. A high tax would stop undesirable immigration.

(a) It would make impossible the sending of undesirable classes.

(1) Paupers.
(2) Convicts.
(3) Contract laborers.
(4) Shiftless and ignorant persons whom agents of steamship companies induce to come:

Yale Review, I., 132.

(b) The Italians and Slavs can barely raise the passage money, and they could not raise the tax.

(c) Tax would not keep out the desirable immigrants, such as Germans, Swedes, and Irish.

(1) They bring enough money to pay the tax.

III. A tax is the simplest effective restriction.

(a) It cannot be evaded.

(b) It is the surest practical guarantee of the qualities desired:

Yale Review, I., 141.

(c) It is a just means.

(1) One immigrant is worth to the country one hundred dollars:

Political Science Quarterly, III., 204-207 (June, 1888).

(2) Per capita wealth of the United States is one thousand dollars.

(3) The immigrant should pay to be admitted to the wealth and privileges of this country.

 

Brief for the Negative.

General references:

Westminster Review, Vol. 130, p. 474 (October, 1888);
North American Review, Vol. 134, p. 347 (April, 1882); Vol. 154, p. 424 (April, 1892); Vol. 156, p. 220 (February, 1893);
Forum, XIII., 360 (May, 1892);
Lalor’s Cyclopedia, II., 85;
Friedrich Kapp, ‘Immigration,’ in Journal of Social Science, 1870, No. 2, pp.21-30.

I. A continuance of immigration is desirable:

Forum, XIV., 601 (January, 1893);
Public Opinion, III., 251 (July 2, 1887); XIV., 297 (December 31, 1892).

(a) There is need of laborers in the South and West:

North American Review, Vol. 134, p. 350 (April, 1882).

(b) Voluntary immigrants are thrifty and active:

Political Science Quarterly, III., 61 (March, 1888).

(c) The troublesome and mischievous immigrants are a small part of the whole:

Nation. XLV., 519 (December 29, 1887);
Forum, XIV., 605-606.

II. The present immigration laws are sufficient:

Public Opinion, III., 249;
Supplement to the Revised Statutes of the United States, 1874-1891, I., Chap. 551.

(a) Laws now exclude paupers, criminals, insane people, and persons liable to become a public charge, as well as imported labor.

(b) Immigration is practically self-regulating:

Forum, XIV., 606.

III. The proposed measure of a high tax is undesirable.

(a) It would literally mean prohibition, which is a complete reversal of American policy.

(b) It would be unjust.

(1) It would debar families from emigrating.

(2) It would discriminate against the peasant class, women and the younger men, who are often the most desirable immigrants.

(c) It is impracticable:

Political Science Quarterly, III., 420.

(1) It would be difficult to collect the tax:

Forum, XIII., 366 (May, 1892).

(2) Our extensive frontiers would make the law perfectly useless.

(d) It would create an undesirable class of immigrants.

(1) Those who evaded the laws would be an adventurous, restless element.

(2) Those who paid the tax would be embittered by our narrow policy.

 

 _______________________

THE EXCLUSION OF THE CHINESE.

Question: ‘Resolved, That the policy excluding Chinese laborers from the United States should be maintained and rigorously enforced.’

Brief for the Affirmative.

General references:

Forum, VI., 196 (October, 1888);
North American Review, Vol. 139, p. 256 (September, 1884); Vol. 157, p. 59 (July, 1893);
Overland Monthly, VII., 428 (April, 1886);
Scribner’s Monthly, XII., 862 (October, 1876);
J. A. Whitney, The Chinese and the Chinese Question.

 

I. The Chinese are a source of danger to American civilization.

(a) Morally.

(1) Barbarity of Chinese character:

The Chinese and the Chinese Question, p. 21.

(2) Inhuman treatment of women.

(3) Practice of gambling.

(4) Degraded religion:

Forum, VI., 201.

(5) Utter disregard for oaths.

(6) Criminality:

Scribner’s Monthly, XII., 862.

(b) Socially.

(1) Unhealthy mode of living.

(2) Impossibility of amalgamation:

Overland Monthly, VII., 429.

(3) Contamination through opium smoking, leprosy, and small-

pox.

(4) Dangers to American youth of both sexes.

(c) Politically.

(1) Inability and unwillingness to become citizens:

Senate Reports, 1876-1877, No. 689.

(2) Refusal to obey our laws.

(3) Secret system of slavery:

Scribner’s Monthly, XII., 860-865.

(d) Economically.

(1) Impossibility of competition with Chinese.

(2) Gradual encroachment on all occupations.

(3) Does away with the Middle class of artisans and results in the concentration of capital:

Forum, VI., 198;
North American Review, Vol. 139, pp. 257, 260-273.

II. Exclusion furnishes-the best remedy.

(a) It is constitutional under decision of Supreme Court:

Fong Yue Ting v. U. S., 149 U. S., 698.

(b) It will not materially affect our commercial relations with China.

(c) It is beneficial to the Chinamen who are legally in the United States.

(d) It is practicable.

(1) Rules are simple and can be readily complied with or enforced.

 

Brief for the Negative.

General references:

Nation, LVI., 358 (May 18, 1893);
Forum, XIV., 85 (September, 1892); XV., 407 (June, 1893);
North American Review, Vol. 148, p. 476 (April, 1889); Vol. 154, p. 596 (May, 1892); Vol. 157, p. 52 (July, 1893);
Nation, XXVIII., 145 (February 27, 1879);
Scribner’s Monthly, XIII., 687 (March, 1887);
Nation, XXXIV., 222 (March 16, 1882);
Overland Monthly, VII., 414 (April, 1886); XXIII., 518 (May, 1894);
Richmond Mayo-Smith, Emigration and Immigration, Chap. xi.

I. The exclusion of the Chinese is at variance with fundamental American principles:

Nation, XXXIV., 222.

(a) It is contrary to the spirit of the Constitution:

Constitution of the United States, Amend. XV.

(b) It is founded on race prejudice.

(c) It violates our treaty obligations and good faith between nations:

Forum, XV., 407; XIV., 85-90.

II. Chinese immigration is no menace to American interests.

(a) The Chinese do not immigrate in large numbers.

(b) They do not multiply after their arrival.

(c) They take only money—and little of that—out of the country, and leave finished products.

(d) They compete with unskilled labor and do not affect the wages of skilled labor.

(e) They are honest, industrious, peaceable, and frugal.

(f) They form but a small element in political life, and the fact that they are not citizens makes them less dangerous than other immigrants.

III. The policy of exclusion is harmful.

(a) It injures good feeling between the two countries.

(b) It menaces commerce:

Forum, XIV., 87-88.

(1) China may retaliate any time.

(c) It discourages missionary work.

(d) It deprives the United States of effective labor suitable for large enterprises.

(1) Work on transcontinental railroads.

(2) In mines.

(3) Farming.

(4) Construction of irrigation works.

IV. The difficulty in enforcing the legislation makes it impracticable.

(a) The penalty for violation has no terrors for the Chinese immigrant:

Popular Science Monthly, XXXVI.,185 (December, 1889).

(b) Many citizens oppose the legislation.

(c) It has failed thus far.

 

 

Source: W. Du Bois Brookings and Ralph Curtis Ringwalt, eds., Briefs for Debate on Current Political, Economic, and Social Topics. New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1908, pp. 68-75.

Image Source:  F. Victor Gillam, “The immigrant. Is he an acquisition or a detriment?” Illustration in Judge (September 19, 1903). Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.

 

Categories
Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Economic Problems of Latin America. Bradley, 1944

Philip Durgan Bradley, Jr. (1912-2003) received his A.B. from Lawrence College in 1935, his A.M from Harvard in 1938, and his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1942 with the dissertation “Some aspects of corporate income taxation”. Bradely’s special examination for the Ph.D. was in Public Finance. Besides having been a tutor/instructor then assistant professor of economics at Harvard, a visiting professor at the University of Virginia and a contributor to a volume about unions published by the American Enterprise Organization (forerunner of today’s American Enterprise Institute), his career remains somewhat obscure.

Bradley, Philip D. et alLabor Unions and Public Policy. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Association, 1958.
Bradley, Philip D. (ed.) The Public Stake in Union Power. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1959.

______________________________

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 38b. (spring term) Dr. Bradley.—Economic Problems of Latin America.

Total 82: 1 Graduate, 5 Seniors, 10 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 1 Freshman, 20 Radcliffe, 44 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President and Reports of the Departments, 1943-44, p. 184.

______________________________

 

Economics 38b
Spring Term, 1944

 

  1. Introduction

Royal Institute of International Affairs, Republics of South America, Chs. I and II.

  1. Agriculture and Land Tenure
    1. L. Schurz, Latin America, pp. 155-178.
    2. M. McBride, Chile: Land and Society, Ch. V.
    3. H. Barber, Land Problems in Mexico, Foreign Agriculture, Vol. III, pp. 99-120.
    4. O Nyhus, Argentine Pastures and the Cattle-Grazing Industry, Foreign Agriculture, Vol. IV, pp. 3-30.
    5. Agriculture in Peru, Foreign Agriculture, Vol. II, pp. 267-98.
    6. D. Wickizer, The World Coffee Economy, Chs. I, II, VII.
  1. Resources, Mining, and Industry
    1. F. Bain and T. T. Read, Ores and Industry in Latin America, pp. 54-62, 72-81, 135-147, 248-258, 303-308.
    2. Wythe, The New Industrialization in Latin America, Journal of Political Economy, 1937, pp. 207-28.
    3. C. Simonsen, Brazil’s Industrial Evolution, pp. 11-63.
    4. José Jobin, Brazil in the Making, Part III, Ch. I, pp. 93-106.
  1. Government, Labor, and Industry
    1. Lewis Lorwin, National Planning in Selected Countries, General, pp. 121-134; Brazil, 137-140; Venezuela, 157-164.
    2. M. Phelps, Migration of Industry to South America, Chapter VI, Government Control of Business Activities, pp. 165-193.
    3. M. Phelps, “Petroleum Regulation in South America,” American Economic Review, March 1939, pp. 48-59.
    4. American Advisory Economic Mission to Venezuela, Report to the Minister of Finance.
      1. General Background, pp. 243-277, 286, 295, 298.
      2. Chapter I, Introduction, pp. 1-2, 4-6, 10-14.
      3. Chapter II, Price Level and Structure, pp. 15-37, 46-52.
      4. Chapter III, Tariffs, pp. 75-82.
      5. Venezuelan Public Finance, pp. 301-310.
        Chapter V, Internal Revenue System, pp. 141-155, 175-177, 195-202.
    5. M. Phelps, Migration of Industry to South America,
      Chapter VII, section on Labor, pp. 238-270.
    6. Galarza, Labor Trends and Social Welfare in Latin America, 1941 and 1942, Summary pp. i-viii.CHOOSE EITHER 7, 8, OR 9.
    7. Paula Lopes, “Social Problems and Legislation in Brazil,” International Labor Review, Vol. 44, No. 5, pp. 493-537.
    8. Galarza, Labor Trends and Social Welfare in Latin America, Argentina, pp. 1-23 and Chile, pp. 50-70.
    9. Galarza, Labor Trends and Social Welfare in Latin America, Bolivia, pp. 23-40.
      and
      E. Herrnstadt, “Problem of Social Security in Colombia,” International Labor Review, Vol. 47, No. 4, pp. 426-449.
  1. Trade, Money and Finance
    1. Olson and Hickman, Pan American Economics, Ch. 3.
    2. Law and Contemporary Problems, Hemisphere Trade, Autumn, 1941
      Operation of the Trade Agreements Program, pp. 684-707.
    3. S. Tariff Commission, Foreign Trade of Latin America, Part II, Volume 2, United States Silver Policy, pp. 204-209.
    4. Triffin, Money and Banking in Colombia, Sections 2 and 3.
    5. German Max, Monetary History in Chile.
    6. Triffin, Central Banking and Monetary Management in Latin America.
    7. Olson and Hickman, Pan American Economics, Ch. 5.
    8. C. Wallich, “Future of Latin American Dollar Bonds,” American Economic Review, June 1943, pp. 321-336.
    9. Patterson, “The Export-Import Bank,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 1943.

 

READING PERIOD

Read: V. D. Wickizer, World Coffee Economy, Ch. XI and XII, pp. 203-208 and pp. 220-233.

Read one of the following:

C. D. Kenner, Social Aspects of the Banana Industry, Omit Chs. 6, 8, 9, and 11.

D. M. Phelps, Migration of Industry to South America, Chs. 1 thru 4.

Banco Central de la República Argentina, Annual Report:

a. 1938, pp. 5-27
b. 1939, pp. 1-24
c. 1940, pp. 1-12
d. 1941, pp. 17-40
e. 1942, pp. 1-50

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003 (Box 3), Folder “Economics, 1943-44 (2 of 2)”.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Economy of Russia. Leontief, 1947-48

We are used to seeing professors restricting their teaching to their research comfort zones. We see here that Wassily Leontief also taught courses from his broad interests. Here the syllabus and final exam for a course on the “Russian” [“Soviet” would have a better word choice] economy.

During the following Fall term Alexander Gerschenkron taught a graduate seminar (Economics 212b) on the subject which was attended by only three graduate students, but the reading list was much more extensive. Leontief offered this undergraduate course (Economics 112b) in the Spring of 1949.

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Course Enrollment

[Economics] 12b. Professor Leontief. — The Economy of Russia (F).

Total 35: 16 Graduates, 5 Seniors, 7 Juniors, 2 Sophomores, 4 Radcliffe, 1 Other.

 

Source: Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1947-48, p. 89.

________________________________________

Economics 12b
The Economy of Russia
Fall Term, 1947-48

 

I.        From the Emancipation to the Revolution

1.       Agricultural development and reforms
2.         First stages of industrialization

Reading assignments:

Bowden, Karpovich, and Usher, An Economic History of Europe since 1750, Ch. 29, pp. 598-615.
Hubbard, L. E., The Economics of Soviet Agriculture, Chs. 1-8, pp. 1-63.
Maynard, J., The Russian Peasant, Chs. 1, 2, pp. 13-62.

II.      War and Revolution

1.         War economy up to the October Revolution
2.         Agrarian revolution and the nationalization of industries

Reading assignments:

Maynard, Ch. 6, pp. 63-81.
Baykov, A., The Development of the Soviet Economic System, Chs. 1, 2, 3, pp. 1-48.

III.     War Communism

1.          Industrial collapse
2.         Agricultural contraction

Reading assignments:

Dobb, M. Russian Economic Development since the Revolution, Chs. 3, 4, pp. 66-128.

IV.     The New Economic Policy

1.          Private enterprise and the socialized sector
2.         Agricultural recovery
3.         Industrial reconstruction

Reading assignments:

Maynard, Ch. 10, pp. 148-182.
Baykov, Chs. 4-9, pp. 49-152.

V.       The Economics of High Pressure Industrialization

1.         Capital accumulation
2.         Structural change

Reading assignments:

Yugow, A., Russia’s Economic Front for War and Peace, Ch. 2, pp. 30-42, and Ch. 9, pp. 198-219.
Baykov, A., Ch. 10, pp. 153-158.
Dobb, M., Ch. 8, pp. 177-208.

VI.     Socialist Agriculture

1.         The process of socialization (collectivization)
2.         The Kolkhoz
3.         The Sovkhoz and machine-tractor station
4.         Development of agricultural output and its allocation

Reading assignments:

Baykov, Ch. 13, pp. 189-311; Ch. 17, pp. 309-334.
Yugow, Ch. 3, pp. 43-81.
Maynard, Ch. 15, pp. 279-309.
Bienstock, Schwarz, and Yugow, Management in Russian Industry and Agriculture, Chs. 10-17, pp. 127-179.

VII.    Industrial Expansion

1.         The three Five-Year Plans
2.         Industrial organization
3.         Labor and unions

Reading assignments:

Yugow, Ch. 2, pp. 13-30; Chs. 7 and 8, pp. 149-197.
Bienstock…, Chs. 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, and 9.
Baykov, Ch. 11, pp. 159-187; Ch. 13, pp. 212-233; Ch. 16, pp. 277-308; and Ch. 18, pp. 335-363.
Bergson, A., The Structure of Soviet Wages, Chs. 1, 2, pp. 3-25; Chs. 11, 12, 13, and 14, pp. 159-210.
Report of the C.I.O. Delegation to the Soviet Union, 1947.
Dobb, M., Ch. 16, pp. 407-453.

 

VIII.   Functional Structure of the Economic System

1.         Prices, wages, taxes, and profits
2.         The governmental budget as an instrument of economic policy
3.         Methods of planning
4.         Principles of planning

Reading assignments:

Baykov, Ch. 15, pp. 251-276; Ch. 20, pp. 423-479.
Yugow, Ch. 4, pp. 82-95; Ch. 10, 11, pp. 219-243.
Bienstock…, Ch. 4, pp. 47-57; Ch. 6, pp. 66-90; Introduction, pp. xiii-xxxii.
Lange, Oscar, The Working Principles of Soviet Economy, American-Russian Institute.
Dobb, M., Chs. 13 and 14, pp. 313-348.

 

IX.     War and Post-War

1.          Soviet war economy
2.         The new Five-Year Plan
3.         Soviet econmy and world economy

Reading assignments:

Schwartz, Harry, Russia’s Postwar Economy
Gerschenkron, A., Economic Relations with the U.S.S.R.
Yugow, Ch. 5, pp. 96-122.
Dobb, M., Ch. 12, pp. 290-312.

General reading:

Gregory, J., and Shave, D. W., The U.S.S.R., A Geographical Survey, Part I, pp. 1-250.
Scott, John, Behind the Urals.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives , Wassily Leontief Papers (HUG 4517.45), Course Material Box 2, Folder “The Economy of Russia—1949”.
also: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 4, Folder “Economics 1947-48 (1 of 2)”

 

Reading Period
January 5-15, 1948

Undergraduate students:

E. Varga: Two Systems: Socialist Economy and Capitalist Economy, 1939
or
Manya Gordon: Workers before and after Lenin.

Graduate Students

Studies in Income and Wealth, Volume Eight, Part 8: Methods of Estimating Naitonal Income in Soviet Russia, Paul Studenski, from Conference on Research in Income and Wealth, National Bureau of Economic Research, New York, 1946. or
Review of Economic Statistics, November, 1947 – Articles on Russia’s National Income.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 4, Folder “Economics 1947-48 (1 of 2)”

________________________________________

1947-48
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 12b

Answer any FIVE of the following SIX questions:

  1. Describe and appraise the general economic significance of the methods of income payments and income allocation in Soviet agriculture.
  2. Describe the methods which the Soviet Government used (a) to secure and (b) to allocate funds for capital investment.
  3. Compare the role of the trade unions in the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A.
  4. Characterize the successive Five-Year Plans by their principal distinguishing features.
  5. Indicate the reasons and analyze the implications of the recent Soviet monetary reform.
  6. Describe the organization and discuss some of the principal problems of Soviet economic planning.

Final, January, 1948.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives, Wassily Leontief Papers (HUG 4517.45), Course Material Box 2, Folder “Economics 12b”.

________________________________________

March 30, 1948
W.W. Leontief

Make-Up Examination for Economics 12b—Final Exam

Answer FIVE Questions Including Questions 1 and 2

  1. Describe the nature and the function of the turnover tax.
  2. Describe and interpret the organization and the role of foreign trade in the Soviet Economy.
  3. Describe and appraise the general economic significance of the methods of income payments and income allocation in Soviet agriculture.
  4. Describe the methods which the Soviet Government used (a) to secure and (b) to allocate funds for capital investment.
  5. Compare the role of the trade unions in the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A.
  6. Characterize the successive Five-Year Plans by their principal distinguishing features.

Source: Harvard University Archives, Wassily Leontief Papers (HUG 4517.45), Course Material Box 2, Folder “Economics 12b”.

 

Image Source: Harvard Album 1949.

 

Categories
Bibliography Fields Suggested Reading

Industrial Organization, Myron Watkins’ Bibliographic Essay, 1927.

I stumbled across the following excellent bibliographic essay in preparing the previous posting for Dewing and Opie’s 1929 Harvard course, “Economics of Corporations”. The essay provides coverage of the American literature, as well as that of the English, German and French, on the subjects of trusts and cartels, the economic theory of monopoly and regulation and it appears reasonably complete  for its time.

I have not found all too much information about the author:

Myron Webster Watkins was born April 2, 1893 in Milford, Michigan and died in Stamford Connecticut December 4, 1979.

A.B. from the University of Michigan, 1914; Ph.D. from Cornell 1917. Faculty member at the University of Missouri (19??-1926), then professor of economics at New York University (1927-1946).

Some information found in Watkins’ New York Times obituary, December 6, 1979. See also: University of Michigan, Catalogue of Graduates, Non-Graduates, Officers, and Members of the Faculties 1837-1921. Ann Arbor: 1923. Page 210.

The leading economist in the deregulation of the airline industry under President Jimmy Carter, Alfred Kahn, was an assistant to the antitrust experts George W. Stocking and Myron W. Watkins during World War II. [Burton Ira Kaufman, The Carter Years, New York: Facts on File, 2006, p. 244].

________________________

Myron Webster Watkins. Industrial Combinations and Public Policy: A Study of Combination, Competition and the Common Welfare. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1927.

APPENDIX I
A GUIDE TO FURTHER STUDY

[pp. 297-314]

            The literature upon the broad problem of the organization of industry is too extensive to be brought under survey within the limits of this bibliographical note. But, attending simply to the material relating to the trust problem, so-called, the whole field may be conveniently divided into three sections. First, there is a mass of documentary and descriptive material reporting and analyzing actual experience with industrial concentration in different forms and in different spheres. In the second place, there is a considerable body of commentaries upon and criticisms of public policy toward the unified control of industry, including legal treatises and court decisions. Finally, there is the literature which deals with the theory of monopoly. These three divisions might be called the historical, the legal, and the economic literature relating to the trust problem. They do not, however, precisely correspond with the contributions of historians, lawyers, and economists, respectively. The major part of the more useful published material has been provided by economists — evidence that they are no longer a sect of theorists, cultivating in secluded cloisters a “dark and dismal science,” but have become a body of investigators of the practical administration of the business mechanism.

These three subdivisions of the field correspond, in the order given, to the aspects of the problem of industrial combination which appeal to students of different degrees of advancement. At once the most interesting and the most appropriate introduction to this branch of study is through the literature which sets forth, classifies, and interprets the actual phenomena which give rise both to political controversy and to economic speculation. Official publications of original source material, general in scope, are not numerous. Most comprehensive and exhaustive at the time of its first appearance, and still an illuminating collection of data of a type rarely made public authentically, is the Report of the United States Industrial Commission (Washington, in 18 volumes, 1900-01). The Commission, in investigating the general causes of social and industrial unrest, had occasion to call upon business leaders from every important branch of industry which had been affected by the consolidation movement to testify regarding the causes, specific circumstances, and effects of the formation of trusts. Most of this material appears in Volumes I, II, XIII and XVIII of the final report submitted to Congress. Comparable collections of source material are those describing the formation of cartels in Germany, and, more recently, the official survey of the industrial situation in Great Britain. In the report of an Imperial Commission of Inquiry appointed in 1902 (Kontradiktorische Verhandlungen über Deutsche Kartelle, 1903-06) and a survey subsequently made under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior (Denkschrift der Reichsregierung über das Kartellwesen, 1906-09) a number of copies of cartel agreements covering various branches of German industry are reproduced, together with the results of an investigation of their operation. The Report of the Committee on Trusts, of the Reconstruction Ministry, in England (Cd. 9236) London, 1919, evinces a complacent attitude toward the problem of industrial monopoly; but an intensive investigation of post-war trade conditions has subsequently been carried through under the direction of the Standing Committee on Prices and Trusts, a special subdivision of the Board of Trade. Sub-committees appointed for a great number of separate industries and groups of industries have, in their reports, brought to light a mass of information respecting the organization of British industry. No such comprehensive and official inquiry into the extent and character of industrial combination has been made in France.

Reports of more limited scope, setting forth the extent and character of market domination within specific industries, are more numerous. After the establishment of the Bureau of Corporations in 1903, a series of studies was published from time to time each of which treated of separate industries in which consolidations had been formed or control of the market attempted. The reports completed prior to the assumption by the Federal Trade Commission in 1915 of the functions of the Bureau include: the Report on the Beef Industry (1905); the Report on the Petroleum Industry, in three parts (1906,1907,1909); the Report on the Tobacco Industry, in three parts (1909, 1911, 1915); the Report on the Steel Industry, in three parts (1911, 1912, 1913); the Report on the International Harvester Company (1913); and the Report on the Lumber Industry, in four parts (1913,1914). This group of reports, while not entirely free from bias or even innuendo, represents the most exhaustive analysis of the causes and effects of industrial combination in specific spheres anywhere available. The method of procedure was both historical and statistical, and the data upon costs, prices, profits, and capital investment supply a wealth of material for analytical study which the Bureau itself only partially and, it must be added, imperfectly developed.

When the Federal Trade Commission succeeded the Bureau of Corporations as an investigating agency, it was also endowed with certain regulatory functions which seem to have impaired somewhat the performance of its research work. The reports of investigations conducted by the Commission during the first decade of its existence have, with minor exceptions, been fragmentary and of little more than ephemeral interest. There are, for example, a number of reports on costs of production in different industries made during the war or during the post-war boom to facilitate government price fixation or to frustrate “profiteering.” Among these may be mentioned the Report on the Book-Paper Industry (1917); the Report on the Baking Business (1917); the Report on Flour Milling and Jobbing (1918); revised (1920); the Report on Canned Foods (1918); the Report on the Leather and Shoe Industry, 1914-18 (1919); the Report on Copper (1919); the Report on Sugar Supply and Prices (1920); and the series of Coal Cost Reports (1920) dealing with conditions in different production districts. More pretentious investigations reported by the Commission are: the Report on the Meat Packing Industry, in five parts (1918); the Report on the Grain Trade, in five volumes (1920); and the Report on Household Furnishings Industries, in three volumes (1923, 1924). If the industries subject to these investigations were made the object of periodic inquiry the shortcomings of the method of “sampling” the current situation might be largely eliminated. It is possible that this course may eventually be consciously adopted, but at present the only illustrations of it appear to have come about casually, to wit, the Report on Pipe Line Transportation of Petroleum (1916); the Report on the Price of Gasoline in 1915 (1917); the Report on the Pacific Coast Petroleum Industry (1921); and the Report on the Petroleum Industry in Wyoming (1921); the Report on the Fertilizer Industry (1916), ibid. (1923); and the Report on the Tobacco Industry (1921), followed by the Report on the Prices of Tobacco Products (1922). There are obvious positive advantages to commend the policy of recurrent inquiries into industrial and market conditions in the more prominent branches of trade.

Two recent reports by special government commissions may be noted as supplementary to this list of Federal Trade Commission Reports. The Report of the United States Coal Commission and the Hearings before the Joint Commission of Agricultural Inquiry, 67th Congress, 1st Session (volumes I, II, and III) (Washington, 1924), the latter assembling a mass of information on costs of different systems of market distribution, are similar in comprehensiveness to the investigations made by the Bureau of Corporations.

In the numerous unofficial studies of the growth of combinations in various industries the beginner will find some of the most absorbing chapters which the literature upon the trust movement affords. Collections of material covering several industries have been made by Ripley, W. Z., Trusts, Pools and Corporations (Boston, 1916); Dewing, A. S., Corporate Promotions and Reorganizations (Cambridge, 1914); and Stevens, W. H. S., Industrial Combinations and Trusts (New York, 1913). The latter is a compendium of original documents and other source material drawn mostly from court records. Less reliable, but utilizing a mass of information drawn from journalistic sources, is The Truth About the Trusts, by John Moody (New York, 1904). It is, of course, confined primarily to the circumstances surrounding the formation of the early combines, including the financial features of their promotion. Laying emphasis on deeper forces, but proceeding nevertheless on a faulty hypothesis, the late President C. R. Van Hise in Concentration and Control (New York, 1912), brought together a great body of data on the growth of large-scale operations in various industries, and endeavored to connect this tendency directly with the consolidation movement as exhibited in a number of branches of industry.

Similar descriptions of monopolistic organization in England may be found in Macrosty, J. W., The Trust Movement in British Industry (London, 1907), and in Rees, J. M., Trusts in British Industry (London, 1922). The latter work, which is not carefully done, is based almost entirely upon the series of reports on conditions in different industries prepared by the Standing Committees on Prices and Trusts of the Board of Trade, already alluded to. For the development of combinations in France no work of general scope is available, though interesting descriptions and comment upon certain pools and corners will be found in Rousiers, P. de, Les Syndicats Industriels de Producteurs (Paris, 1912), and in Dolleans, Edouard, De L’Accaparement (Paris, 1902). Neither of these is essentially a compendium of information, however. The former is in its way a classic. After recounting the development of the trust movement in the United States, Germany, and France, the author with true Latin clarity presents his general conclusions, which are not unfavorable to industrial concentration. In a subsequent survey and in a more journalistic manner, the broad problem of industrial concentration is treated by Payen, E., Les Monopoles (Paris, 1920). Incorporated in Part 2 is an instructive sketch of French state, or fiscal, monopolies. The best work upon the concentration of industrial organization in Belgium is by Georges de Leener, L’Organization Syndicale de Chefs d’Industrie (Brussels, 1911). In this scholarly treatise covering the entire trend of modern industrialism toward concentration, over half of the first volume is given to a description of the cartel organization in various Belgian industries. No inclusive review of German experience with industrial monopolies has ever been attempted, but there is available a current month to month account of the operations and policies of cartels in all branches of German industry which provides a fund of information incomparably superior to any secondary sources upon the combination movement in other countries. The Kartell-Rundschau has been published regularly since 1903 under the continuous editorship of Dr. Siegfried Tschierschky. It need hardly be explained that the publication is devoted to the interests of the cartels, from which it derives its chief support.

For the review of the general historical development of monopolistic forms of industrial organization the outstand ing work to consult is that of J. Strieder, Studien zur Geschichte kapitalistischer Organisationsformen (Leipzig, 1914). Hardly less authoritative, but less comprehensive, is the illuminating monograph by Herman Levy, Monopoly and Competition (London, 1911), tracing monopolistic tendencies in English industrial evolution from the sixteenth century, and pointing out in the final chapter some interesting parallels and contrasts between the experience of England and Germany and the United States. Monopolies Past and Present, by J. E. Le Rossignol (New York, 1901) covers much the same field.

Special studies in separate fields treating of American experience are by no means as numerous as the rich prospects revealed by occasional short articles in the economic journals might lead one to expect.1 However, they include the detailed narrative of the History of the Standard Oil Company, by Ida M. Tarbell (1904); the more or less legalistic treatment, emphasizing financial aspects of the organization of The United States Steel Corporation, by Abraham Berglund (New York, 1907); and the judicious and scholarly work of Eliot R. Jones on The Anthracite Coal Combinations (Cambridge, 1914). Not primarily devoted to the study of the trusts within the given industries, but exhibiting clearly some of the causes and consequences of their formation, are: The Tin Plate Industry, by D. E. Dunbar (Boston, 1915); The Wool Industry, by P. T. Cherington (Chicago, 1916); and The American Wool Manufacture, Vol. II, by A. H. Cole (Cambridge, 1926). Without attempting to give a complete list of the intensive studies which have been made of the operations and policies of particular German cartels, we may indicate the wealth and range of this type of economic literature in Germany by reference to some of the more prominent studies of two or three important industries. The coal syndicates, the most conspicuous cartels in Germany, historically, have been the subject of much research as well as much controversy. Francis Walker’s Monopolistic Combinations in the German Coal Industry (New York, 1904) makes available in English a critical account of the early period, while W. Goetzke’s Das Rheinischwestfalische Kohlen Syndikate (Essen, 1904) covers the same ground from a more sympathetic angle. Under the same title Kurt Wiedenfeld (Bonn, 1912) published the results of a later study, which includes an account of the crucial controversy of 1910-11 over the question of “Imperial Participation,” or control, in this leading syndicate. The political controversy over the organization of the coal industry in 1911 was the forerunner of the warm debate during the war and the reconstruction period over the issue of nationalization of syndicated industries. Merely as casual examples of the mass of brochures on this subject which have helped to enliven the German political scene in recent years may be mentioned, Monopolfrage und Arbeiterklasse (4 essays), Wm. Jansson, editor (Berlin, 1917); and, on the opposite side, Für Reform der Industriekartelle (Berlin, 1920), and Das Problem der Staatlichen Kartellaufsichte (Mannheim, 1923), by Siegfried Tschierschky. How this sharpening of the issue and the inauguration of the new government policy of compulsory organization, or Zwangswirtschaft (for a few basic industries), have affected the cartells in the coal industry is shown in Die Zwangssyndikate in Kohlenbergbau, by Walter Thoenes (Jena, 1921). A recent addition to the list of scientific studies of the German coal cartels by an American author, A. H. Stockder, under the misleading title, German Trade Associations (New York, 1924), also reviews this later experience and analyzes the results of the new cartel policy. Special works of some merit treating of the experience with cartels in the potash industry, which was, so to speak, their original home, include: Die Deutsche Kaliindustrie und das Kalisyndikat, by Theodore Stoepel (Halle, 1904); Die Deutsche Kaliindustrie und das Kali Gesetze, by J. Schonemann (Hanover, 1911); Die Finanzierung das Kaliindustrie, by H. A. Giebel (Karlsruhe, 1912); and Das Kali, by Paul Kirche (Stuttgart, 1923). The latter work is partly technical. For the iron and steel industry, selection of but three or four outstanding studies from the considerable number which have appeared, without overlooking the historical significance of earlier researches, is even more difficult. The following, however, may be recommended for the present-day student, in preference to the largely superseded work of Mannstaedt and Zoellner: Beckman’s Der Zusammenschluss in der westdeutschen Grossindustrie (Cologne, 1921); H. Bruhn’s Der Eisenwirtschaftsbund (Jena, 1922); and A. Tross’s Der Aufbau der Eisen-und eisenverarbeitenden Industrie-Konzerne Deutschlands (Berlin, 1923). The latter contains a store of information on the present distribution of control in the industry.

The second main division of our classification of trust literature comprises, in addition to monographs of restricted compass surveying alternative public policies and the treatises still more limited in scope discussing current legal rules, a considerable number of textbooks providing a broad approach to, and usually a generalized “solution” of, the problem of industrial monopoly. To refer to the latter type of works first, it seems best to discuss them in the order of their relative emphasis upon the inductive or deductive method. Perhaps most noteworthy, because of its adherence to concrete facts and its empirical outlook, is J. W. Jenks’s The Trust Problem (New York, 1900). This standard text, after passing through a number of editions, was extensively revised in 1917 and published with W. E. Clark as co-author. It reflects throughout the exceptional opportunities for observation and statistical research of its original author, who was Secretary of the Industrial Commission. The digestive function here scarcely keeps pace with the foraging disposition, however. Business Organization and Combination, by Lewis H. Haney (New York, 1913), likewise is developed inductively, and the distinctive feature of the book is the attempt to connect the growth and special characteristics of monopolistic combinations with peculiarities of the corporate structure and the exigencies of corporation finance. The text by Eliot R. Jones under the title, The Trust Problem in the United States (New York, 1921), is the most comprehensive in scope, cautious in method, and sane in judgment of the general works in this field. Its prevailing conservatism is manifested not only in its substance, but in its form; none of the stock classifications, distinctions, or examples has been omitted. Besides intensive studies of six representative industrial combinations, there is an excellent survey in a short compass of the legal history of “the anti-trust movement.” For the reader who wishes an encyclopedic book of reference on the trust problem, either this text or that by Jenks and Clark should answer the purpose. A simple primer covering the more prominent aspects of the consolidation movement in America is J. F. Crowell’s Trusts and Competition (Chicago, 1915).

Two introductory studies of the trust movement in its initial stages, similar in general viewpoint and style, but different in respect of sharpness of perception and breadth of conception, are: Trusts, by E. L. Von Halle, (New York, 1895), and The Trusts and the Public, by George Gunton, (New York, 1899). These supply essentially journalistic descriptions of events and conditions surrounding the formation of trusts, and an explanation of their causes according to prevalent theories. Both were written from a strongly sympathetic point of view, the former primarily for foreign (German) consumption, the latter as a series of essays in apologetics. This “reporting” angle makes Von Halle’s book lucid and readable, while Gunton’s turn for anecdotes assured a wide audience for his articles. Neither possesses any permanent value as a contribution to the solution of the problem of industrial control. In the same category with these two volumes, except that it is developed from an opposite point of view is: The Plain Facts as to the Trusts and the Tariff, by G. L. Bolen (New York, 1902.)

The same verdict does not hold for E. S. Mead’s Trust Finance (New York, 1903), though it reflects a not unsympathetic attitude toward industrial combinations. The problem is interpreted almost exclusively in terms of the speculative evils of corporate promotion and capitalization. Data are assembled bearing upon fraud and chicanery in trust formation. Notwithstanding its one-sidedness, this text has its value in focusing attention on a sometimes neglected factor in the trust movement.

One of the earliest attempts at a circumspect analysis of the many phases of the monopoly problem is R. T. Ely’s Monopolies and Trusts (New York, 1900; ibid., 1906). In this pioneer work Professor Ely provided a sound background for more intensive studies of particular issues of social policy to which the growth of industrial monopolies has given rise. The historical perspective, the comparison and classification of different types of monopolistic organization, and the scientific method of approach distinguish this early classic. Of a not dissimilar stamp is J. B. Clark’s The Control of Trusts (New York, 1901), republished in 1912 with J. M. Clark as co-author. This excellent little text presents a closely reasoned analysis of the economic tendencies and legal situation responsible for the growth of trusts, and of the economic tendencies and legal reforms for which the growth of trusts is responsible. The clear statement of the limitations of competition, its advantages, and its necessary safeguards still bears critical examination, and for the reader who does not care for a more detailed treatment of the basic issues in public policy toward industrial organization this book should prove not only serviceable, but stimulating. A conservative, sane, and judicious book is E. D. Durand’s The Trust Problem (Cambridge, 1915).

For a concise and readable account of the socialist interpretation of the tendency toward industrial concentration, Herman Cahn’s Capital Today (New York, 1918) may be recommended. But the interested reader with two hours of spare time will not forego the opportunity to judge for himself the validity of the familiar predictions made by Karl Marx in Part VII of the first volume of his Das Kapital (Hamburg, 1885), American edition (Chicago, 1907), concerning the course of development of ever more inclusive forms of control in capitalistic industry.

Of foreign literature of the general type of the foregoing, it must suffice merely to mention a few outstanding works. The English contributions are meager, in any case. They include: D. H. MacGregor, Industrial Combination (London, 1906) (a deductive analysis, the abstract terms of which permit suggestive references and applications to trade unions and cooperative societies, as well as to different types of capitalistic groupings); G. R. Carter, Tendency Towards Industrial Combination (London, 1913) (a less scholarly but more pointed criticism of the consolidation movement); John Hilton, A Study of Trade Organizations and Combinations in the United Kingdom (London, 1919) (prepared for the Committee on Trusts of the Ministry of Reconstruction). Of the German treatises surveying and criticizing public policy toward industrial monopoly there must be mentioned before the many others Professor R. L. Liefmann’s Kartelle und Trusts (Stuttgart, 1910). This popular treatise has recently been revised and enlarged to cover post-war experience. It provides a useful classification of capitalistic unions, and an instructive analysis of the relation of the several forms to the special characteristics of different industries. In discussing the causes of the formation of capitalistic combinations and their consequences for the primary economic classes, stress is laid upon the tendencies to excess in free competition, on the one hand, and upon the efficacy of potential competition, on the other. This attitude is common among the majority of the German writers, and no doubt reflects in part the leniency of the established legal policy toward trade combinations. But the chief fault of the analysis is the failure to distinguish between the influence of prospective economies and of monopolistic opportunities in fostering industrial amalgamations. This failing, again, is shared by numerous German writers, who exhibit quite generally a certain disregard of the interests of consumers. Professor Liefmann’s article on Kartelle, in the Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften, 4th ed., Vol. V (Jena, 1923), provides a useful short survey of the subject, together with a fairly full bibliography of the German literature. Other significant German treatises, illustrating in varying degrees the characteristics that have just been noted are: H. Mannstaedt, Ursachen und Ziele des Zusammenschlusses in Gewerbe (Jena, 1916); von Beckerath, Kräfte, Ziele und Gestaltungen in der Deutschen Industriewirtschaft (Jena, 1921); and R. Isay, Studien im privaten und öffentlichen Kartellrecht (Mannheim, 1922). The latter is more than the mere legal treatise its title might suggest.

Less concerned with the formulation of an ultimately and abstractly sound policy, and treating more particularly of the scope, meaning, and significance of actual public policy are a number of critical works written from the legal point of view, but not intended exclusively for a professional audience. Foremost among the monographs of this type stands Bruce Wyman’s The Control of the Market (Boston, 1911). Here is the most instructive and suggestive treatment within two covers of the legal doctrines developed in the common law for the regulation of trade and industry. There is also a searching criticism of the course of judicial interpretation of the Sherman Act. Incisive in analysis, circumspect in judgment, charming in style, this is a classic which no discerning reader can lay down without a regret that its scope should not have been broader.

Even narrower in compass, as is indicated by its title, is ex-President (now Chief Justice) Taft’s The Anti-Trust Act and the Supreme Court (New York, 1914). This little book might almost be described as a tract, for it was written in defense of its author’s record in the enforcement of the Sherman Act, as well as of the policy which that Act embodies. But it evinces a ripe familiarity with every step in the evolution of federal regulation of trade relations, a process in which the author as a judge has borne a distinguished part, bringing to the interpretation of the law both erudition and insight.

Business Competition and the Law, by G. H. Montague (New York, 1917), has more of an instructive purpose, and is therefore less critical. This collected series of articles is little more than a handbook for use in steering business men clear of the meshes of the anti-trust laws. An earlier exposition of the legal doctrines which govern industrial organization and commercial methods, and one written with a better grasp of the significance of their historical origin and development is T. C. Spelling’s Trusts and Monopolies (Boston, 1893). But for a purely legal compendium the reader will do better to refer to W. W. Thornton’s A Treatise on the Sherman Anti-Trust Act (Cincinnati, 1913), and to the encyclopaedic Trust Laws and Unfair Competition (United States Bureau of Corporations, Washington, 1916). Perhaps the most satisfactory treatment of the general law upon trade combinations, however, is A. M. Kales’s Contracts and Combinations in Restraint of Trade (Chicago, 1918). Here the traditional legal doctrines are expounded with rare force and insight.

More academic in tone than any of the foregoing, but exhibiting nevertheless a tenacious adherence to concreteness in method, is The Policy of the United States towards Industrial Monopoly, by O. W. Knauth (New York, 1914). The discussion of the development of the federal law upon trade regulation and the attitude of successive administrations toward its enforcement is characterized by sobriety of judgment and statement. The conflicts of opinion provoked by the anti-trust law and its interpretation are also carefully reviewed. The reader with a bent for historical inquiry will find an inviting problem presented respecting the origin of the Sherman Act, by a comparison of the Autobiography of George F. Hoar (New York, 1903), and the History of the Sherman Law, by A. H. Walker (New York, 1910).

The legal policies prevailing in foreign countries are so divergent that it is impracticable here to refer to works treating of the special features of each of these distinctive systems. One exception must be made, however. Not only because it has to do primarily with the legal principles governing industrial organization and trade relations in Australia, where the Government’s policy has been modeled on the American anti-trust policy, but also because of its own special qualities, mention must be made of W. Jethro Brown’s Prevention and Control of Monopoly (London, 1914). The author of this book is a distinguished jurist and an independent and clear-headed thinker. The book is an important contribution to the understanding of any anti-trust policy established upon common-law traditions.

In surveying the third principal division of the literature upon trusts or industrial monopolies, it is necessary to restrict attention to such works upon economic theory as deal primarily with the problem of monopoly. There is, of course, in most of the systematic treatises upon economic science some discussion of the nature and effects of monopoly. But as the antithesis of that perfect competition which is the foundation stone upon which the structure of classical economic theory has been reared, monopoly has, as a rule, come in for but scanty analysis in these texts. For example, in J. B. Clark’s The Distribution of Wealth (New York, 1900), there are but two casual references to monopoly, and one of these is in a footnote. Even Mill in the theoretical part of his Principles of Political Economy (5th edition, New York, 1894) devotes but a single page to the explanation of the determination of monopoly price and another page to the discussion of the influence of monopoly upon distribution. At best, in most of the well-known economics texts no more than one chapter is given to the treatment of monopoly problems, and that is usually limited to an exposition of the principle of monopoly value.

It is to the mathematical economists that one must go to collect the fragments of a comprehensive theory of value and distribution under monopolistic conditions.2 The mathematical method appears to lend itself readily to the analysis of market processes under the assumption of artificial manipulation. At any rate, the most significant contributions to this branch of economic theory have come from the mathematical school. The pioneer work of A. A. Cournot, Recherches sur les Principes Mathématiques de la Théorie des Richesses, first published in 1838 and translated for the “Economic Classics” series in 1897, remains an excellent introduction to the study of monopoly value. The employment of the methods of calculus brought a new technique into economic science, and by the device of superimposing demand and supply curves upon a single graph, Cournot opened the gateway to a fruitful field of scientific exploration. But he was not content with pointing the way, and except from the historical point of view these contributions are not what make the study of the Recherches most worth while to the present-day student.

Cournot employed his rigid mathematical methods in a lucid exposition of the effects of monopoly, under varying conditions as to costs, upon prices. He also analyzed, but not with so full a measure of success, the tendencies set up by partial monopoly, or limited competition,— an aspect of the general problem peculiarly significant for one interested in trusts and industrial combinations.3

Not all the mathematical economists have followed Cournot’s lead in setting out to construct a complete theory of value by proceeding from conditions of monopoly and working toward the purely competitive market by a gradual modification of hypotheses. The Lausanne school, so-called, developed the theory of exchanges, after the classical manner, under assumptions of free competition; but this approach has not prevented them from making some acute observations regarding the effects upon economic equilibria of monopolistic influences. Leon Walras, the founder of this group, in his Éléments d’Économie Politique Pure (Lausanne, 1889), developed the theory of general economic equilibrium. The study of monopoly has also been significantly advanced by Professor Pareto, the successor of Professor Walras, in his systematic treatises, Cours d’Économie politique (Lausanne, 1897), and Manuel d’Economie politique, (Paris, 1909). For a clear summary and a just appreciation of the contributions of the Lausanne school to economic theory, one should consult E. Antonelli, Principes d’Économie pure (Paris, 1914). A more critical review of the work of this school, as well as of the mathematical method in economics in general, will be found in W. E. Zawadski, Les Mathématiques appliquées à l’Économie politique (Paris, 1914). Outside of the Lausanne school, which is more than half French itself, the leading French representative of the mathematical method has been Professor E. Colson, and his comprehensive Cours d’Économie politique, in six volumes (Paris, 1901-07), will be found to contain some of the most precise and ingenious demonstrations of the consequences of monopolistic price-making under varying conditions. In particular Volume I, pp. 141-201, and Volume VI, pp. 11- 54, may be recommended.

Probably, however, the most searching analyses of the problems surrounding monopolistic price determination, including its relation to wealth distribution and social welfare, in the last two generations have been made by English mathematical economists. The work of two of the three most prominent of these contributors to an economic theory of monopoly is well summed up in their books, but the contributions of the third found expression almost exclusively in journal articles. Professor Edgeworth’s prefatory Mathematical Physics (London, 1881) called attention to the interesting possibilities in an economic analysis of the operation of combinations in various spheres: the determinateness of the transactions in which they participated, the significance of the reduction in the number of exchange relationships, and the advantages and limitations of concert of action in the market. These questions and similar ones have been minutely examined in subsequent writings, more especially with reference to ordinary commercial transactions in a series of three articles on La Teoria Pura del Monopolio in the Giornali degli Economisti, 1897 (Volume XV, 2d Series, pp. 13, 307, 405), and with reference to the particular case of diminishing cost industries and the attendant power of discrimination, in Contributions to the Theory of Railway Rates, four articles in the Economic Journal (1911-13, Volume XXI, p. 346, p. 55; Volume XXII, p. 198; Volume XXIII, p. 206). It is fortunate that these and other scattered papers of Professor Edgeworth have now been brought together and the articles on the “Pure Theory of Monopoly” retranslated into English. In his complete economic writings, Papers Relating to Political Economy (London, 1925), the articles referred to above will be found, respectively, in Volume I, pp. 111-42, and in the same volume, pp. 61-99 and pp. 172- 91.

The second of the triumvirate referred to has accomplished, better perhaps than any of the other mathematical economists, the difficult task of interpreting clearly and untechnically the results and significance of analyses that necessarily involved types of reasoning that are essentially mathematical. Alfred Marshall, in his Principles of Economics (8th edition, New York, 1920), has done far more than to interpret the contributions of other minds, however, and not less than elsewhere in the sections dealing with monopoly and its incidents. The fifth Book of his Principles, Chapters 8, 9, 12, 13, and 14, cannot be overlooked by any student desiring the minimum essentials of an acquaintance with the literature of trusts and monopolies. The scrupulous faithfulness of the late dean of English-speaking economists in adhering to the rigid premises of his argument when treating of the theoretical implications of monopoly, no less than in other parts of his work, combined with his extraordinary grasp of the limitations of those premises and their relation to the complexities of actual affairs, enabled him to penetrate many obscure compartments and fissures in the economic structure without losing his way. And the reader, if he watches all the sign-posts, can follow him without difficulty. In particular, Marshall explains the relation of various cost tendencies to the development of monopoly, and studies the effects upon the general welfare of the operation of monopoly under varying conditions, natural and imposed.

Finally, the successor of Professor Marshall, both academically and professionally, Professor A. C. Pigou, has given us, in The Economics of Welfare (2d ed., London, 1924), the best all-around account anywhere obtainable of the economic significance of monopoly and of the feasibility of the different means of its regulation in the public interest. The present writer’s indebtedness to this source and to Professor Pigou’s previous volume, Wealth and Welfare (London, 1912), which may be taken as a preliminary edition of The Economics of Welfare, is so patent in the sixth chapter of this monograph that it will not need more than formal acknowledgment here. The relationship is cited here mainly that the reader may gauge better the importance attached to Professor Pigou’s notable achievements in this branch of economic theory.

A compact but rather difficult mathematical summary of some of the more important results reached by Edgeworth, Marshall, Pigou, Pareto, and others is given by Professor A. L. Bowley in his Mathematical Groundwork of Economics (Oxford, 1924).

The contributions of American economists in this difficult field of economic analysis have not been especially conspicuous. For a cautious but very elementary treatment of the problem of monopoly value, the student will find helpful the exposition of the authors of Outlines of Economics, R. T. Ely and associates (New York, revised edition, 1920).

At the moment of going to press, there has just appeared an important series of monographs on cartels and combines, prepared under the direction of the Economic and Financial Section of the League of Nations (Geneva, 1927) for submission to the International Economic Conference of May, 1927. Only the briefest mention of these documents is possible in the circumstances. The one presenting the most acute analysis and the most realistic interpretation of the movement toward comprehensive industrial control is Professor Kurt Wiedenfeld’s Cartels and Combines. A healthy skepticism is evinced by Professor D. H. MacGregor in his very brief treatment of International Cartels. Professor Gustav Cassel takes advantage of the opportunity in a tract upon Recent Monopolistic Tendencies in Industry and Trade, not only to point out the similarities between trade unions and business confederations and amalgamations, but also to exhibit a personal bias, as it appears, by magnifying the economic evils set in train by the former and minimizing even the potentialities of abuse in the latter. The thesis taken by Professor Paul de Rousiers in his Cartels and Trusts and Their Development is that “Industrial agreements between producers are the outcome of economic necessity, bound up with existing conditions of production and distribution.” But as the author does not himself maintain this standpoint throughout the essay, his readers are not likely to be convinced. Still less convincing are a number of the other papers in which logic has been thrown overboard altogether and dissimulation given the job of pilot. These need not be cited. It is enough to note that under the euphemistic slogan of “Economic Rationalization,” which to some means a prudent direction of affairs and to others rationing, or plain division of the spoils, a movement is under way in Europe to smooth the way for supernational industrial control. In some cases this might mean the extension of monopolistic influences over wider spheres, but more frequently probably only the entrenchment of existing privileges within particular national spheres. Several of the documents under review appear to have been designed to lend impetus to this movement.

Notes

1 Vide, on the paper industry, articles by H.R. Hess, 25 Quarterly Journal of Economics, 650 (1911), E. O. Merchant, 32 Quarterly Journal of Economics, 238 (1918), and 34 Quarterly Journal of Economics, 313 (1920), Constance Southworth, 30 Journal of Political Economy, 681 (1922); on the gunpowder industry, an article by W. H. S. Stevens, 26 Quarterly Journal of Economics, 444 (1912); on the iron and steel industry, articles by E. S. Mead, 22 Quarterly Journal of Economics, 452 (1908); A. Berglund, 38 Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1, and 607 (1923-24); on the woolen industry, articles by L. D. H. Weld, 27 Quarterly Journal of Economics, 67 (1912), A. H. Cole, 37 Quarterly Journal of Economics, 436 (1923); and on the shoe machinery industry, articles by R. Roe, 21 Journal of Political Economy, 938 (1913), and 22 Journal of Political Economy, 43 (1914).

2 This phrase is used hero and elsewhere to comprehend conditions of quasi-monopoly as well as monopoly in the strict sense.

3 While the mathematical method does not appear, in general, to have made strong appeal to German economists, this particular aspect of the problem of monopoly has been further developed by Karl Forchheimer in an article in Schmoller’s Jahrbuch, vol. xxxii, p. 1, “Theoretisches zum unvollständigen Monopole.”

 

Image Source: National Archives and Records Administration. United States, Selective Service System. Selective Service Registration Cards, World War II: Fourth Registration. Records of the Selective Service System, Record Group Number 147. World War II Draft Cards (Fourth Registration) for the State of Maryland. State Headquarters ca. 1942. NARA Publication: M1939. NAI: 563727. The National Archives at St. Louis, Missouri. U.S.A.

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Courses Johns Hopkins Stanford Suggested Reading Syllabus

Johns Hopkins. Lectures on Charities by A. G. Warner, 1893

In 1892 Amos G. Warner (1861-1900) was hired as the head of the newly established Department of Economics and Social Science at Stanford. A sketch of his biography is found in the eulogies reported at his memorial service at Stanford.  This is followed by an outline with readings for a course of lectures he held at Johns Hopkins University in 1893 “On Charities and their Administration”.

 

 

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MEMORIAL TO DR. A.G. WARNER.

Friends and Colleagues of the Dead Professor Pay Tribute to a Truly Great Man.

Last night memorial services were held in the chapel for Dr. Amos Griswold Warner, late head of the department of Economics and Sociology in the University. The touching tributes of recollection bore eloquent testimony how deeply his friends at Stanford have felt his death.

President Jordan first spoke, saying : “About fourteen years ago I was told by one who had attended a convention of political economists that the man who was the most sane, interesting, and human of them all was the professor of economics in the University of Nebraska, Dr. Amos G. Warner. It was largely through this statement that I was led to investigate his life and work and to offer him a professorship, first in the East and again in the West, the last of which he finally accepted. It was through Dr. Warner’s recommendation that I first came to look up the records of Dr. Ross and Dr. Howard, so he had a great deal to do with this institution.”

Dr. Jordan introduced Dr. Howard, who said of Dr. Warner, in part : “I have had an acquaintance with him extending over a score of years and must be excused if I give personal reminiscences.

“Just twenty years ago last September there appeared for registration in the University of Nebraska a farmer’s boy from Roca, a village about eleven miles distant from there. His clothes were of the severest country type. His eye, as many of you know, constantly gave a human and somewhat quizzical light —looking out into the new world into which he was about to enter, and of which in more than usual measure he took possession. I had just returned from Germany and for three months was a supply teacher, and with others felt that a new power had come among us, as we learned more and more to appreciate his mind. The part which a young man or a young woman has to take in academic life in the making of the institutions which constitute that life is very important. As he is strong or great in that life he is likely to be in the life beyond. Dr. Warner had a sense of humor almost unsurpassed, and was often a leader in college fun — in true college fun — that kind which had the joy of gentleness, but he was never found in that group whose only claim to academic distinction is good clothes, nor among those who are eager to imitate evil, nor among those who in the name of a college joke or prank delight to persecute those who are physically or mentally weaker than themselves. He told me that he had resolved to graduate and then carry the culture he had obtained into a farmer’s life. While yet a graduate student he received his first call to public duty. In Baltimore, the patron of charities in that city heard of him and the young boy received an invitation to organize the charities —the most difficult work that any man can undertake. The plough boy of Roca undertook the work and he succeeded. And then came the first call to teach. He was appointed an associate professor and my colleague, and now after a few months’ teaching came his second call to public work, to Washington. The thing which finally determined his coming to Stanford was the gift of the Hopkins Library to this institution. He was deeply interested in railroad matters and would build up a railroad school here which would be a great activity.

“But was the work of Dr. Warner left unfinished? He first organized the Associated Charities, and then he organized one of the most important branches of another science, that of Economic Corporations. But there is something more than that which is better, and that is the influence of that good and true soul which he put forth. One may compare it in its results to a diamond cast into the water. The waves of intellectual and moral influence recede further and further, until they break the uttermost shores of time. He had knowledge of man, and of men in all forms and shapes, which only the wise can possess. His work led him in the lowest walks of society, and he came out of it a master of men. When one stands in the presence of that noble and pure soul he cannot but feel humility. When one considers his greatness and his strength one may have faith and hope for the man of democracy.”

Dr. Edward A. Ross was the next to speak of Dr. Warner. He said : “Professor Warner was a most original man. His was the pioneer mind. He seemed to have the capacity to relate economics to real life. He was always on the growing margin of the science, where something new is to be discovered. His methods were original and effective. Instead of sending his students to texts, he sent them out in the world to study the jails, almshouses, and city halls. Students who are here now simply cannot realize the deep devotion of Professor Warner’s students to him, and the profound impression that he has left on every one of them. He had a rare common sense. When he was here two years ago he gave four lay sermons, and I think that they will never be forgotten. I have hardly heard a person comment on these sermons. They are of the kind that you think over, and carry in your mind.”

[…]

Source:  The Stanford Daily. Vol. XVI, Issue 9 (January 24, 1900), p. 1.

 

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CHARITIES AND THEIR ADMINISTRATION.
ABSTRACT OF A COURSE OF LECTURES BY A. G. WARNER, PH. D.
[1893]

The lectures to graduate students on Social Science during the current year were opened with an introductory course by President Gilman. He briefly characterized some of the fundamental and special works of sociology and showed its relation to history, politics, economics, education, sanitation, penology, and other distinct fields of social inquiry. The relations of university men to the State and to society were discussed, together with various practical topics pertaining to political ethics, public morality, social reform, and organized charity.

These introductory lectures were followed by courses by Dr. A. G. Warner and Dr. E. R. L. Gould.

A course of ten lectures on “Charities and their Administration ” was delivered during December and January by A. G. Warner, Ph. D., Superintendent of Charities for the District of Columbia, and Professor-Elect of Economics in the Leland Stanford Jr. University. During and following the course, a company of those especially interested in the subject visited many of the charitable and penal institutions of the city and vicinity, under the guidance of Mr. F. D. Morrison, Superintendent of the Maryland School for the Blind, who represented the Baltimore Charity Organization Society, and Mr. D. I. Green, who was chosen chairman of the class.

The substance of Dr. Warner’s lectures will eventually be incorporated in a work entitled “American Charities, a Study in Philanthropy and Economics,” [Volume 4 in Crowell’s Library of Economics and Politics, 1894] but it is thought best to print at once for the use of those interested in the subject the list of references and a brief synopsis of the lectures themselves.

The references as given by Dr. Warner have been extended by, Mr. D. I. Green, through the addition of dates and places of publication and the completion of titles. They are presented here not as a bibliography of charities but as a reader’s guide which has already proved useful to students of social science.

Perhaps the best bibliography for the American student of charity, though by no means complete, is that found in the appendix of the last Baltimore Directory of Charities. The Directory may be obtained from the Charity Organization Society of Baltimore for fifty cents. The Library Catalogue of the London Charity Organization Society, now appearing in Charity Organization Review, will constitute a more complete bibliography.

 

List of Works Suggested by the Lecturer for Reference in connection with this Course.

 

(a) Bibliographical Helps:

Adams, H. B. Notes on the Literature of Charities. Johns Hopkins University Studies, fifth series, No. 8. 1887.
Commons, John R. Popular Bibliography of Sociology. The Christian Social Union, Madison, Wis. 1891.
Catalogue of the Library of the State Charities Aid Association. New York City. 1886. Directory of Charities of Baltimore, Appendix E. Charity Organization Society, Baltimore. 1892.
Catalogue of Library of the London Charity Organization Society. This is being printed in sections as a supplement to the Charity Organization Review, beginning with January, 1893. London.

 

(b) Periodicals:

The Charities Review. Published monthly from November to June. Charity Organization Society of New York City. $1.00.
Lend a Hand. Edited by Rev. E. E. Hale. Monthly. Boston. $2.00.
State Charities Record. Published bi-monthly. The State Charities Aid Association of New York. Discontinued, June, 1892.
Charity Organization Review. Published monthly. The Charity Organization Society of London. 6 d. each.
The Monthly Register. The Philadelphia Society for Organizing Charity. 50 cts.
Die Arbeiter-Kolonie. Monthly. Gadderbaum, Germany. 50cts.

 

(c) European:

Nicholls, George. History of the Poor Laws. London. 4 vols. 1854-1857.
Chalmers, Thomas. Christian and Economic Polity of Large Towns. Glasgow, 1858.
Fowle, T. W. The Poor Law. London, 1881.
Fawcett, Henry. Pauperism; Its Causes and Remedies. London, 1871.
Hodder, Edwin. Life and Work of the Earl of Shaftesbury. London and New York, 1886.
Booth, Charles. Labor and Life of the People. 3 Vols. London. 1889, 1891, 1892.
Schönberg’s Handbuch der Politischen Oekonomie, third edition, article, “Armenwesen,” by E. Löning. Tübingen, 1891.
Conrad’s Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften, articles, “Armenwesen,” by Dr. Aschrott and others; and “Arbeiter-Kolonien,” by J. Berthold. Jena, 1890
Emminghaus, A. Poor Relief in Different Parts of Europe. Translation. London, 1873.
Böhmert, Victor. Armenwesen in 77 Deutschon Städten. Dresden, 1886.

 

(d) American:

Annual Reports of the National Conference of Charities and Correction, 19 vols. Boston.
Reports of State Boards of Charities.
Report on the Defective, Dependent and Delinquent Classes. Tenth Census of the United States. Vol. XXI.
Aschrott, P. F. Poverty and Its Relief in the United States of America. Translated for the Baltimore Charity Organization Society. Baltimore, 1890.
Gilman, D. C. Our Relations to Our Other Neighbors. Baltimore, 1891.
Warner. Dr. Amos G. Charities: The Relation of the State, the City, and the Individual to Modern Philanthropic Work. 12 pages. Supplement to Johns Hopkins Univ. Studies. Baltimore, 1889.
Riis, Jacob A. How the Other Half Lives. New York, 1889.
Crooker, Joseph H. Problems in American Society. Boston, 1889.
Ely, Richard T. Philanthropy. Reprinted by the Baltimore Charity Organization Society, 1887.

 

In studying pauperism, we study one branch of the science of social pathology; in studying charities and their administration we are concerned with one branch of social therapeutics. Pauperism is natural and inevitable only in the same sense that bodily disease is natural and inevitable. Both are evils to be treated by scientific methods and to be assailed in their causes. Parenthetically it may be said that the tendency to use the term social science or sociology as meaning simply what is here called social pathology and therapeutics is a pernicious one. There is no good name for the branch of social science which relates to the care of social weaklings.

In the present course little will be said about gratuitous charity-made pauperism. The evils resulting from unwise giving are to be mentioned only incidentally. It is desired to dwell on what needs doing rather than on what should not be done, to consider especially those great and various groups of individuals whose destitution is undoubted, and to outline the wisest methods of helping them.

 

Lecture No. 1.
PAUPERISM AS A PHASE OF NATURAL SELECTION.

(a) On Natural Selection in its Application to Man:

Huxley, Thomas H. The Struggle for Existence. The Nineteenth Century, Feb., 1888. On the Natural Inequalities of Men. Ibid, Jan., 1890.
Wallace, A. R. Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection. London, 1871.
Ritchie, D. G. Darwinism and Politics. London, 1889.
Bagehot, Walter. Physics and Politics, chapter on the “Uses of Conflict.” 1872.
Darwin, Charles. Origin of Species, 1859; and the Descent of Man, 1871.
Spencer, Herbert. Principles of Biology, 1864; and Principles of Sociology, 1874 et seq.
Malthus, Rev. Thomas Robert. The Principle of Population. London, 1798, 1803, etc., New York, 1890.

 

(b) On the Causes of Pauperism:

Booth, Charles. Pauperism and the Endowment of Old Age, chapter VII, and the tables there cited. London and New York, 1892.
Böhmert, (see above) pp. 114-116.
Reports of the Charity Organization Societies of Boston, Buffalo, New York, Baltimore, etc.
Warner. A. G. Notes on the Statistical Determination of the Causes of Poverty. Publications of the Am. Statistical Association, New Series, Vol. I, No. 5. Boston, 1889.
Crooker. Problems in American Society. Boston, 1889, p. 146.

 

“The Unfit” is an ambiguous term (see Huxley and Ritchie). In a narrow sense it means simply unfitness to cope with circumstances at a given time and a given place; in a broader sense it means unfitness from the standpoint of race improvement and it is a common but mischievous error to assume that those who are unfit in one sense of the term are also unfit in the other. Natural selection as a means of race improvement is always efficient, but sometimes enormously slow and wasteful. A man would be unfit in the sense of failing to cope with circumstances who should not be able to resist an attack of small pox, or who finding himself thrown into deep water should be unable to swim. Vaccination and life preservers are used to prevent such persons from becoming victims of temporary misfortune or weakness; and this is a proper modification of natural selection, because the persons who are not by nature fitted to cope with the special circumstances of the time and place may be eminently fit from the standpoint of race improvement. The purpose of philanthropy should be first, to preserve those who are fit from the standpoint of race improvement from being crushed by unfortunate local or temporary conditions, and second to enable those who are unfit from the standpoint of race improvement to become extinct with the least possible suffering.

In trying to determine what constitutes the unfitness of the individuals composing the pauper class, a system of case counting is frequently resorted to. A tabular exhibit of the result reached by German, English and American investigators shows that the most constant factor is sickness; next in importance in chronic pauperism is weakness of old age, and in incipient pauperism, the weakness of extreme youth. An attempt to classify the cases of pauperism according as the causes indicate misfortune or indicate misconduct has for its leading result the conclusion that very little dependence can be placed upon such a classification. The study of a concrete mass of pauperism tends to confirm Dugdale’s conclusions that “Hereditary pauperism rests chiefly upon disease in some form, tends to terminate in extinction, and may be called the sociological aspect of physical degeneration.”

 

Lecture No. 2.
SOME OF THE SOCIAL CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF INDIVIDUAL DEGENERATION.

 

Billings, John S. On Vital and Medical Statistics. Reprinted from The Medical Record. New York, 1889.
Eleventh Census, Bulletin 100.
Körösi. Joseph. Sterblichkeit der Stadt Buda-pest in den Jahren 1876-1881 und deren Ursachen, Mittheilungen über individual Mortalitäts-beobachtungen, and other works. Budapest, Hungary.
Reports of the New Jersey Bureau of Labor for 1889,1890 and 1891, chapters upon the “Health and Trade-Life of Workmen.”
Twiss, Travers. Tests of a Thriving Population. London, 1845.
Porter, Dwight. A Sanitary Inspection of Certain Tenement-House Districts of Boston. 1889.
Chapin, H. D. Preventable Causes of Poverty. The Forum. June, 1889.
Humphreys, Noel A. Class-Mortality Statistics. Journal of Royal Statistical Society. June, 1887.
Newsholme, Arthur. Elements of Vital Statistics. London, 1889.
Grimshaw, T. W. Reports as Registrar General of Ireland, 1885 et seq.

 

Influences which often tend to lower the industrial and social status of the individual that are commonly treated in works on economies, are the variations in the purchasing power of money, changes in industry, undue power of class over class, specialized industries, and the work of women and children. For present purposes we do not take up these topics which are treated elsewhere, but will content ourselves with certain statistical investigations as to occupational-mortality and morbidity.

By computations based on a table given by Körösi we find that out of 1000 merchants (Kaufleute) who are in the business at the age of 25 there will be alive at the age of 60, 587.7; of the same number of tailors, 420.6; of shoemakers, 376.2; of servants, 290.2; of day laborers, 253.4. The high mortality of the laboring classes carries with it an implication of a relative large amount of sickness. Taking an average of two years of sickness to each death—which is the proportion commonly assumed by statisticians— we find that merchants would have 32.5 years of health in which to provide for one year of sickness, tailors 21.3, shoemakers 18.7, servants 15.5, and day laborers only 13 years. This, however, does not indicate fully the burden imposed upon the lower classes by a high death rate. In order to give a more adequate idea of this burden we must turn to statistics of class-mortality and morbidity, since only here do we obtain a view of sickness and health in the population of all ages. Taking the population of Dublin, as statistically described by Dr. Grimshaw, it is found that among persons of the independent and professional classes there is an average of 24.5 years of health for persons over fifteen years of age in which provision may be made for one year of sickness in the whole population of the same class; while for the poorest class there are only 8.8 years of effective health in which to provide for one of sickness.

In the first lecture we reached the conclusion that disease is an important cause of poverty. We now reach the conclusion that poverty is an important cause of disease. Yet it is not without advantage that we travel all the way around this circle, and reach no general conclusion more novel than that already announced in Proverbs, “The destruction of the poor is their poverty.” It enables us to realize anew the interaction of social forces, and the manner in which that which they have is taken away from those which have not.

 

Lecture. 3.
PERSONAL CAUSES OF DEGENERATION.

Weismann, A. F. L. Heredity and Kindred Biological Problems. Translation, Oxford, 1889.
Ward, Lester F. The Transmission of Culture. The Forum, May 1891; and Neo-Darwinism and Neo-Lamarkism. Pamphlet. Washington, 1891.
Galton, Francis. Hereditary Genius. London, 1869.
Dugdale, R. L. The Jukes. New York, 1877, 1884.
McCulloch, O. C. The Tribe of Ishmael. Indianapolis, 1888.
Ely, R. T. Pauperism in the United States. North American Review, April, 1891.
Strahan, S. A. K. Marriage and Disease. New York, 1892.
Booth, Charles. Pauperism and Endowment of Old Age. 1892.
Drummond, Henry. Natural Law in the Spiritual World, chapters on Semi-Parasitism, and Parasitism. New York, 1887.
Tenth Annual Report of the New York State Board of Charities. 1877.
Royce, S. Deterioration and Race Education. New York, 1877.

 

As to heredity it must be said that it is now an open question among scientists whether or not acquired characteristics are transmitted by inheritance. If not, we are more in the dark as to the cause of variation in the human and other species than was for a time supposed; and much bearing on our present subject that has been written by Spencer, Maudsley, Bagehot and Dugdale is out of date. For instance, Mr. Dugdale’s tentative conclusion that “heredity itself is an organized result of invariable environment” would have to be given up. If Weismann’s contention is correct those interested in race-improvement will have to pay more attention than might otherwise have been thought necessary to the principles of selection. Galton has investigated the influence of heredity in producing unusually able men; Dugdale, McCulloch, Mrs. Lowell, and Charles Booth have investigated its influence in producing paupers, criminals and prostitutes.

Among secondary causes of degeneration pertaining to persons the following are of leading importance:

(1). Sexual licentiousness. All careful observers agree that perversion of sexual instincts is one of the chief causes of individual degeneration. It results in specific disease, general under-vitalization and incapacity. (2). Intemperance. Its degenerative influence is greatest in classes considerably above the pauper class (Booth, pp. 39-41). Its influence has not been studied with the scientific care it merits. (3). Laziness and under-vitalization merges into various forms of specific disease and into idiocy. It often appears in the children of the licentious and intemperate. (4). Parasitism, or the habit of dependence. Is at once an evidence and a source of degeneration. Is closely analogous to parasitism among plants and animals. (See Drummond, above). It may be indefinitely developed by unwise philanthropy.

We need not for the present inquire whether the secondary causes result from the influence of the individual’s “free choice,” from hereditary or from environment. There is said to be a tendency among defectives to intermarry, and so eventually to hasten extinction. (See Strahan).

 

Lecture No. 4.
THE ALMSHOUSE AND ITS INMATES.

(a) On Almshouses:

Booth, Charles. Pauperism and Endowment of Old Age, 1892, especially pp. 33 and 117.
Eleventh Census, Bulletin 90.
Report of a Conference on Charities held in Baltimore, April, 1887. Especially F. B. Sanborn on “Work in Almshouses,” and A. G. Warner on “The Charities of Baltimore.”
Reports of State Boards of Charities, especially New York, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin.
Reports of the National Conferences of Charities and Correction. Especially papers by Messrs. Giles and Sanborn, 1884; Byers, 1886, and Mrs. Lowell, 1879.
Pamphlets issued by the Wisconsin State Board of Charities on the Construction and Management of Almshouses.

 

(b) On Out-Door Relief:

Reports of the National Conference, 1879, pp. 200 ff; 1881, pp. 144-154; symposium, 1891.
Farnam, H. W. Report on the Advisability of Establishing a Workhouse, etc. New Haven, 1887.
Lee, Joseph. A Study in Out-Door Relief. State Charities Record. April, 1892.
Report of Committee on Out-Door Alms of the Town of Hartford, Conn., 1891.

 

(c) On Old Age Pensions:

Booth. Pauperism. (See above).
Spender, J. A. The State and Pensions in Old Age. London, 1892.
Chamberlain, Joseph. Old Age Pensions. The National Review. Feb., 1892.
Loch, C. S. Old Age Pensions and Pauperism. London, 1892.

 

The almshouse is the fundamental institution in American poor relief. The abjectly destitute not otherwise provided for are sent here (inmates of almshouses in the United States 1890-73,015, ratio of population 1 to 857; 1880, inmates of almshouses, 66,203, ratio to population 1 to 758—Census Bulletin No. 90).

Formerly almost the entire care of the poor was left to the local political units. Under such circumstances all classes of dependents were jumbled together in the almshouse. Now, specialization is so far advanced that the state usually cares for the blind, the deaf and dumb, and in many cases for the insane and the feeble minded, and children are usually provided for by special agencies. This leaves for the almshouse at the present time the old, the infirm, the decrepit and chronic invalids and paupers. The stigma attaching to the acceptance of almshouse relief seems to come not so much from the fact that it is supported by the public as from the fact that a great majority of its inmates are thoroughly degenerate physically and morally. (See Hartford Report).

The almshouse is usually managed either by the county, city or township. Its character depends first upon the man employed as its superintendent, and second on the supervision. It is an institution that people willingly forget and reluctantly visit. It should be on a farm but near a town, so that visitors may easily reach it. Besides this, State supervision is indispensable and adequate control is desirable. (See Illinois Report, 1890—page 104).

To prevent excessive almshouse population the following deterrent influences have been used at various times and places: (a) Inhuman and-unallowable: dirt, hunger, cold, cruelty, vermin, and the promiscuous mingling of the evil and the good. (b) Beneficent: Rigid discipline, work for all capable of doing anything, cleanliness, and thorough investigation of applicants.

The evils to be guarded against other than those indicated above: (a) Lax rules regarding admission and departure (Booth and Mrs. Lowell); (b) Lack of proper classification (as to sex, age, character, etc.); (c) Presence of insane and feeble minded without adequate provision for them; (d) Presence of children; (e) Excessive cost; (f) Undue attractiveness.

Attempts have been made to provide in other ways for those commonly sent to the almshouse; the first of these is out-door relief. Strangely enough, the effect of giving such relief has usually been to increase the number of in-door poor, and conversely when the supply of out-door relief has summarily been cut off; the number of out-door poor has diminished, or remained stationary. Several proposals for the endowment of old age have recently been made in England. Canon Blackley, Joseph Chamberlain and Charles Booth have severally made proposals upon which a large number of variations have been suggested by others. It is not certain that pensions are a cure for pauperism, as our own experience indicates.

The almshouse must continue to be the basis of public poor relief. It is therefore the duty of those interested in the welfare of the poor to know that the almshouse in the community in which they live is well and humanely managed; that it is a proper place for those who ought to go there; and that those that should not, especially the children and certain classes of the insane, are elsewhere provided for.

 

Lecture No. 5.
THE SICK, THE INSANE, AND THE FEEBLE-MINDED.

(a) On Charities for the Sick:

Rentoul R. B. Reform of our Voluntary Medical Charities. Paris, 1891.
Reports of the National Conferences of Charities and Correction. Papers on Medical Charities: 1883, pp. 428 ff.; 1875, pp. 52 ff.; 1877, pp. 81-46; on Hospitals: 1890, pp. 155-177; 1891, pp. 52 ff.; on Training Schools for Nurses, 1890, pp. 110-147.
Hampton, Miss I. A. District Nursing. Report of the Charity Organization Society of Baltimore for 1891, and The Charities Review for February, 1892.
Hampton, Miss I. A. Nursing: Its Principles and Practice. Philadelphia, 1893.
Hunter, Mrs. Hospital Nursing. Eng. Illustrated Magazine for March, 1891.

 

(b) On the Care of the Insane:

Report of the National Conference. Especially 1882, p. 97, and 1888, pp. 25-95 and 384.
Finley, J. H. American Reform in the Care of the Insane. Review of Reviews, June, 1891.
Hammerton, C. R. Modern Treatment of the Insane. Chautauquan, Dec., 1891.

 

(c) On the Care of the Feeble-Minded

Reports on the National Conference: 1884, pp. 246-263; 1885, pp. 158-178; 1886, pp. 288-302; 1887, pp. 250-260; especially 1888, pp. 99-113 and 395; 1890, pp. 224 ff.
Institution Bulletin, and Annual Reports of the Pennsylvania Training School for Feeble Minded Children, especially the Circular of Information for 1888. West Chester, Pa.

 

In these three departments of charity work the problem is to provide the best possible curative treatment for those that are curable, and to furnish kind custodial care for the incurable. It is especially necessary that adult females incurably insane or feeble-minded should have custodial care during their entire lives.

 

Lecture No. 6.
THE UNEMPLOYED AND THE HOMELESS POOR

Reports of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor. 1879, and especially 1887.
Reports of the Ohio Bureau of Labor. 1890 and 1891.
Warner, A. G. Some Experiments on Behalf of the Unemployed. Reprinted from The Quarterly Journal of Economics for Oct., 1890. Boston.
Die Arbeiter-Kolonie. Monthly Magazine. Gadderbaum, Germany.
Peabody, F. G. German Labor Colonies. Forum, February, 1892.
Report of Indiana State Conference of Charities. 1891.
Willink, H. G. Dutch Home Labor Colonies. London, 1889.
Reports of the Philadelphia Society for Organizing Charity.
Booth, Wm. In Darkest England and the Way Out. London and New York,1890.
Huxley, Thos. H. Social Diseases and Worse Remedies. London, 1891.
Loch, C. 8., Bosanquet, B., and Dwyer, C. P. Criticisms on “General” Booth’s Scheme, London, 1891.
The Homeless Poor of London. Report of the London Charity Organization Society. June, 1891.
Ribton-Turner, C. J. History of Vagrants and Vagrancy. London, 1889.

 

The problem of the unemployed is very largely the problem of the inefficient. The evil must be assailed in its causes, as very little can be done for the inefficient adult.

There are three distinct ways of dealing with the homeless poor: First, aid them or force them to move on,—this simply results in a shifting of burdens; is very expensive and inefficient if it is the only method adopted. Second, punishment, — a severe law passed in Connecticut worked well for a time, but is now a dead letter. Third, give indiscriminately what they ask, — this promotes vagabondage and consequent misery. As a matter of fact each case must be treated individually, some should be aided to move on, some should be punished and some should be given what they ask. The station house system of free lodgings suits the tramp and degrades and repels the merely unfortunate. Vermin, bad air, dirt and crowding are luxuries to the tramp; cleanliness and work are the things he cannot stand. What is needed is a lodging house with clean beds, good ventilation, a shower bath, a steam chest or fumigating room for devitalizing clothing, and a wood yard or stone heap where the work test may be applied.

 

Lecture No. 7.
DEPENDENT CHILDREN.

Brace, Charles Loring. The Dangerous Classes of New York. New York, 1872.
Wines, E. C. State of Prisons and Child Saving Institutions in the Civilized World. Cambridge, Mass., 1880.
Review of Reviews for January, 1892. Including “The Child Problem in Cities,” by J. H. Finley, and “Two Champions of the Children” (Elbridge Gerry and Benjamin Waugh), by the editors.
Riis, Jacob A. Children of the Poor. New York, 1892.
Reports of the National Conference of Charities and Correction. Especially 1880, pp. 166-174; 1881, pp. 271-308; 1884, pp. 115-207 and 354 ff..; 1888, pp. 215-235 and 279 ff.; 1889, pp. 1-9.
The Charities Review for March,1898. Several articles concerning dependent children.
Reports of the Children’s Aid Society, New York.

 

The work for children is the most hopeful branch of charitable endeavor. Institutional care results in a very high death rate for infants, and among older children in a failure to develop properly and fully; there is a lack of preparation for ordinary life, the children acquire habits of dependence and lack inventiveness, vitality and energy. “Placing out,” if done with care, gives the child an opportunity for healthful development, and readily makes of him an independent member of the community. The placing out system is perhaps worse than the institutional system unless it. is administered with “an adequate supply of eternal vigilance.”

 

Lecture No. 8.
PHILANTHROPIC FINANCIERING.

 

Reports of the National Conference of Charities and Correction. 1888, paper by Seth Low on Municipal Charities; the reports on state boards of charities in every volume; 1889, paper by Mrs. Lowell.
First Report of the Superintendent of Charities of the District of Columbia, 1891.
Johnson, Alex. Some Incidentals of Quasi-Public Charity. Charities Review, Feb., 1892.
Hobhouse, Arthur. The Dead Hand. London, 1880.
Fitch, J. G. Endowments. Printed in the Proceedings of the College Association. Philadelphia, 1888.
English Blue Books. Returns of the Commissioners of Inquiry into Charities.

 

Passing with nothing more than mention the well-known distinctions between public and private charities, we find, under the head of to-day’s lecture, two subjects of pressing and practical importance. The first is that of endowments. The proper regulation of bequests to charitable institutions is of even more importance in this country than in England, because of the Dartmouth College decision, yet but little attention has been paid to it. We practically give a man who possesses wealth the power of controlling its disposition indefinitely. The experience of European countries admonishes us that this is a distinctly dangerous power to confer. All States should provide for the systematic “visitation” of endowed charities, and give to some public body the power to control their administration. Regulation of holdings in mortmain is more indispensable in institutions for giving material relief than in educational institutions. The latter deal with the intelligent and often with the influential classes, and must, at any rate, compete with one another for students. Institutions affording material relief deal especially with the defenceless classes, and the element of competition is absent.

The second subject of importance is that of public subsidies to private charities. To grant such subsidies is usually at first a cheap method of providing for certain classes of the poor, but eventually results in the multiplication of institutions, in excessive expense, and undesirable entanglements with sects and cliques. It is only allowable when some public official passes upon the indigency of the beneficiaries, and payment is then made to the private institution on the principle of specific payment for specific work. The experience of New York with charities for children, and of Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia with medical charities is especially instructive.

 

Lecture No. 9.
THE CHARITIES OF AMERICAN CITIES.

 

Reference should be made to the Directories of Charities of the leading cities, and especially to the Directory of the Charities of Boston; Directory of the Charities of New York; Directory of the Charities of Baltimore; and the Indianapolis “Charity Year Book.” For comparison see the “Charities Register and Digest” of London.

The charitable systems of cities are of especial importance because the inefficient and the destitute drift to the centres of population. We often hear of the growth of the city population through the coming to the city of farmer boys who make the successful business men of a succeeding generation, and it is maintained that the city must receive this infusion of new blood or it could not continue to exist. But there is another drift towards the cities of the incapable and the destitute. Those who must depend upon others are apt to fare hardly in the isolation of the rural districts. There is what has been called an element of rural hard-heartedness, which drives the destitute to the cities. Some four or five cities in the United States now have such a large number of charitable organizations at work within their limits that is found necessary to publish a directory of charities. In New York the additions and changes are so numerous that an annual edition of this is published. As an indication of what we are coming to, it is perhaps well to compare these small volumes with the Register and Digest of the London charities, a large octavo of nearly 1000 pages.

To study the table of contents of a directory of charities, or the systematic account of the institutions as given in the body of the book, might leave on the mind the false impression that there was something systematic about their arrangement and that they had come into existence according to a prearranged plan. Such is not the case; their various lines of work intersect and overlap each other, and one gets a more correct idea of the heterogeneous mass of charitable agencies by reading an alphabetical list of them.

 

Lecture No. 10.
RECENT EXPERIENCES IN THE ORGANIZATION OF CHARITIES.

(a) Charity Organization:

Gurtean, S. H. A Hand-book of Charity Organization. Buffalo, 1882.
Loch, C. S. Charity Organization. London, 1890.
Crooker, J. H. Problems in American Society, 1889, pp. 105-115.
Lowell, Josephine S. Public Relief and Private Charity. New York, 1884.
Reports of the National Conference of Charities and Correction since 1879.
Reports and publications of the American Charity Organization Societies, especially those of Boston, New York, Buffalo, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Haven, Indianapolis, and Cincinnati.
Hill, Miss Octavia. Various pamphlets and review articles.
Fields, Mrs. J. T. How to Help the Poor. Boston, 1884.
Pains, Robert Treat, Jr. Work of Volunteer Visitors. Boston, 1880.
Charities Register and Digest. Introduction, 3d edition. London, 1890.
Wines, F. H. The Law of Organic Life: Its Application in Public and Private Charity. An address delivered before the Charity Organization Society of Baltimore, Dec. 1891. Springfield, Ill., 1891.

 

(b) State Boards of Charities:

Reports of the National Conference of Charities and Correction, all volumes.
Reports of the boards of the several states.

 

Public charities are usually co-ordinated by a State board, and the larger cities also have municipal boards of supervision or control. State boards of charities are of two general kinds, first, those having executive power, such as Rhode Island, Wisconsin and Kansas. In these cases the members usually receive a salary. Secondly, boards having powers of supervision and report only, with an unsalaried membership and a salaried secretary who is an expert. The State board should have powers of visitation and report regarding county and city institutions as well as State institutions, and it is better when they can be given powers of visitation over all charitable institutions in the commonwealth, whether such institutions receive public money or not.

Supplementary to the work of the State boards are the State charities aid associations as found in New York and New Jersey. These are supported by private contributions and are made up of volunteer workers with possibly a paid Secretary. The law gives the right of visitation over all public charitable institutions. They are intended to supplement the work of investigation as performed by public officials, and to improve in every possible way the administration of public charities.

The work of co-ordinating all charitable agencies of the cities and towns so as to avoid the overlapping of relief, the perpetration of fraud, and to secure the greatest possible efficiency of the allied agencies, is the work of what is known as a charity organization society. A charity organization society is primarily an animated directory of all the charities of the city in which it exists. It undertakes to secure the harmonious co-operation of all the persons interested in aiding the poor, to see that prompt and fitting relief is found for all cases of genuine distress of whatever kind, so to visit and investigate each applicant for relief so as to secure accurate knowledge of his needs, to register by cases all relief given and all facts learned regarding applicants for relief, to apply correctional influence to all able and unwilling to work, to applicants the poor with friends other than almsgivers, and to undertake the collection and diffusion of knowledge upon all subjects connected with the administration of charity.

 

Conclusion.

Among the hopeful tendencies in modern philanthropic work, may be mentioned the emphasis that is being put upon preventive work, especially in the matter of securing more healthful conditions for the poor, the protection of the young, and the encouragement of charities having the educational element strongly developed. Not as much attention as could be wished has been paid to the matter of enabling the distinctly unfit to become painlessly extinct

In speaking to a company of graduate students, most of whom look forward to professorial careers, it is desirable to indicate the use of courses in social pathology. The matter will receive perhaps its first systematic treatment in the work of section 7, of the International Congress of Charities, Correction and Philanthropy, which will be held in Chicago, next June. From the time that Chalmers delivered his lectures on political economy, and especially on pauperism at the University of Glasgow, and re-enforced them by the practical work of abolishing public out-door relief in his own parish, to the time of Toynbee, and to the present when fully a half-dozen American colleges or universities give systematic instruction in this branch, more or less has been done in this line. Aside from the practical outcome of such instruction and its influence on benevolent work, there is a distinct value in approaching the labor problem, for instance, from the standpoint of the incapable, or the subject of public administration from the point of departure of those institutions where abuses are most frequent.

The specialist must, however, be careful not to mistake his particular study for the whole subject. Social pathology is not social science but only a branch of it.

 

Source: Johns Hopkins University University Circulars. Vol. XII, No. 105 (May, 1893), pp. 73-77.

 

 

 

Categories
Courses Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Graduate Mathematical Economics. Goodwin, 1948

In the Fall term of 1948-49 assistant professor Richard M. Goodwin took over the graduate course in Mathematical Economics at Harvard from Wassily Leontief (who last taught the course during the academic year 1946-47).

Earlier postings at Economics in the Rear-View Mirror for Goodwin:

Reading list for a course on business cycles,
Letters from Burbank and Schumpeter on Goodwin’s behalf to Columbia,
and a 1951 Harvard Crimson feature written by the Edward Snowden precursor, Daniel Ellsberg (who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971).

Some might see “physics envy” in Goodwin’s selection of reference texts. But do remember, there was hardly a plethora of books on mathematical methods in economics to choose from at that time.

__________________________________

[Course Announcement]

Economics 204b (formerly Economics 104b). Mathematical Economics
Half-course (fall term). Tu., Th., 2:30-4. Assistant Professor Goodwin.

Properly qualified undergraduates will be admitted to this course.

 

Source: Harvard University. Final Announcement of the Courses of Instruction offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1948-49, p. 77.

____________________________________

[Course enrollment]

[Economics] 204b (formerly 104b). Mathematical Economics (F). Assistant Professor Goodwin.

2 Graduates, 3 Seniors, 1 Junior, 1 Public Administration, 2 Radcliffe: Total 9

 

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1948-49, p. 77.

____________________________________

 

1948-49
Economics 204b

A
Partial Analysis

  1. The Role of Logical and of Empirical Elements in Economics
  2. Power Series and Linear Approximations
  3. Marshallian Static Market
  4. Dynamical Partial Equilibrium with examples of first and second order differential equations
  5. Durable Goods Markets, The Acceleration Principle and Simple Aggregative Mechanisms
  6. The Cob-web Theorem and the Multiplier
    First Order Difference Equations
  7. Inventory Cycles
    Second Order Difference Equations

Reading Assignments:

P. Frank, Foundations of Physics, Parts I, II and Section 14.
P. A. Samuelson, Foundations of Economic Analysis, Chs. I, II, IX, and X, pp. 302-307
Marshall, Principles of Economics, Book V, Ch. I, II, III
R. Frisch, “The Interrelation between Capital Production and Consumer Taking”, Journal of Political Economy, 1931.
M. Ezekiel, “The Cob-web Theorem,” in Readings in Business Cycle Theory
R. M. Goodwin, “The Multiplier,” in The New Economics, ed. S. E. Harris
L. A. Metzler, “The Nature and Stability of Inventory Cycles,” Review of Economic Statistics, 1941.
Ibid., “Factors Governing the Length of Inventory Cycles,” Review of economic Statistics, 1947.

 

B
General Interdependence

  1. The Leontief Matrix, Linear Systems
  2. The Multiplier as Matrix: Static Analysis, Inhomogeneous Systems
  3. The Multiplier as Matrix: Dynamic Analysis, Dynamical Difference Equation Systems
  4. Linear Dynamic Systems in Economics

Reading Assignments:

T. Haavelmo, “The Interdependence Between Agriculture and the National Economy, J.F.E. [Journal of Farm Economics], 1947.
W. Leontief, The Structure of the American Economy, pp. 1-42.
Ibid., “Output, Employment, Consumption, and Investment,” Q.J.E., 1944.
R. M. Goodwin, “Dynamical Coupling,” Econometrica, 1947.

Reading Period: (Read all of the following)

J. Tinbergen, “Econometric Business Cycle Research,” in Readings in Business Cycle Theory.
P. A. Samuelson, “Interactions between the Multiplier Analysis and the Principle of Acceleration,” in Readings.
Ibid., “Dynamic Process Analysis,” in A Survey of Contemporary Economics, ed. by H. S. Ellis.
Ibid., Foundations of Economic Analysis, Chs. XI and XII.

 

[Handwritten on back of library copy
of reading list by Richard M. Goodwin]

To be put on reserve for
Ec 204b

A. C. Aitken, Determinants and Matrices
F. L. Griffin, Introduction to Mathematical Analysis
R. Courant, Differential and Integral Calculus vol I and II
L. A. Pipes, Applied Mathematics for Engineers and Physicists
R. G. D. Allen, Mathematical Analysis for Economists
P. A. Samuelson, Foundations of Economic Analysis

____________________________________

 

[Handwritten note by Richard M. Goodwin]

 

Oct. 22, 1948

Reading Room
Widener Lib.

Dear Sirs:

I would like to have the following books put on reserve for Economics 204b.

A. C. Aitken, Determinants and Matrices
R. Courant, Differential and Integral Calculus vol I and II
L. A. Pipes, Applied Mathematics for Engineers
R. G. D. Allen, Mathematical Analysis for Economists
P. A. Samuelson, Foundations of Economic Analysis
P. Frank, Foundations of Physics
S. Harris, editor, The New Economics

Thanking you, I am

Sincerely

[signed]
Richard M. Goodwin

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. . Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1), Box 4, Folder “Economics 1948-1949 (2 of 2)”.

Image Source: Harvard Album, 1946.

 

Categories
Courses Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Advanced Economic Theory. William Fellner, 1950-51

As mentioned in the previous posting, William Fellner of the University of California was called in to fill for Wassily Leontief’s graduate course in Advanced Economic Theory during the academic year 1950-51 at Harvard. Another course taught by Fellner that year was history of economics for undergraduates. Still only available in libraries or from used-book dealers is the 1992 “Bio-Bibliography” of William J. Fellner by James N. Marshall. Of course “Bio” means “biography” here.

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If you find this posting interesting, here is the complete list of “artifacts” from the history of economics I have assembled. You can subscribe to Economics in the Rear-View Mirror below. There is also an opportunity for comment following each posting….

_____________________________________

[Course Announcement]

Economics 202 (formerly Economics 102a and 102b). Advanced Economic Theory
Full course. Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 11. Professor Fellner (University of California).

Economics 201 or an equivalent training is a prerequisite for this course. Other properly qualified students must obtain permission to register from the instructor.

 

Source:  Final Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences During 1950-51. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XLVII, No. 23 (September, 1950) , p. 83.

________________________________________

1950-51
Economics 202
Fall Term

Value Theory (Costs of Production, Demand, Principles of Pricing under Various Market Structures, and the Bearing of These on Welfare Problems)

The list of readings is not final. It will be adjusted to the classroom discussion. Some readings will be assigned, others recommended.

 

  1. Difficulty of “placing” the economies of the Western world in terms of concepts such as capitalism, socialism, individualism, collectivism, etc. Problems arising for theory from the multiplicity of more or less rigidly (or loosely) organized groups.

 

  1. Costs of Production

Production functions, the law of variable proportions.

Cost functions of single-plant firms, of multiple-plant firms and of industries. Short and long-run analysis. Internal and external economies. Relationship between supply functions and cost functions. The particular expenses function. The demand for factors of production. Technological and organizational improvement.

Readings:

Cassels, The Law of Variable Proportions (in Explorations in economics, Essays in Honor of F. W. Taussig).
Hicks, Value and Capital, Chs. 6 and 7.
Viner, Cost Curves and Supply Curves (reprinted from Zeitschrift fuer Nationaloekonomie, 1931).
Harrod, Doctrines of Imperfect Competition (reprinted from Q.J.E.)
Stigler, Production and Distribution in the Short-run (Readings in the Theory of Income Distribution).
Chamberlin, Proportionality, Divisibility and Economies of Scale (Q.J.E., February 1948).
Patinkin, Multiple-Plant Firms, Cartels and Imperfect Competition, (Q.J.E., February 1947).
Joan Robinson, The Economics of Imperfect Competition, Ch. 10 and Ch. 20.
Marshall, Principles of Economics, Appendix H.
National Bureau of Economic Research, Cost Behavior and Price Policy, Ch. 5.

  1. Demand Functions

The assumption of rational consumer behavior. Marginal utility and the indifference curve approach. The measurability problem. Consumer surplus. Complementarity and the rival relationship. Marginal utility of money. The significance of price-elasticity and of income-elasticity. Inferiority and the Giffen Effect. How much validity is there in criticisms of the rationality assumption?

Readings:

Marshall, Principles of Economics, Book IV.
Hicks, Value and Capital, Part I.
Henderson, Consumer Surplus and the Compensating Variation, Review of Economic Studies, February 1941.
Friedman-Savage, Utility of Choices Involving Risk, J.P.E., August 1948.
V. Neumann-Morgenstern, The Theory of Games, pp. 15-20.
Veblen, Marginal Utility Economics (in The Place of Science in Modern Civilization).

 

  1. Market Structures (monopoly, competition, monopolistic competition in large and small groups)

The industry concept and various measures of relationships between firms. The relationship between the size of the market and the size of the firm. The dependence of this relationship on real economies of scale, on exploitative advantages of scale, and on product-differentiation. The bearing of these on welfare. The concept of profit-maximization in various market-structures. Limitations of profit-maximization. “Institutional” considerations.

Readings:

Chamberlin, The Theory of Monopolistic Competition.
Joan Robinson, Economics of Imperfect Competition, Book V.
Fellner, Competition Among the Few, Chs. 1 (incl. Appendix) and 4 through 9.
Sweezy, Demand under Conditions of Oligopoly, J.P.E., June 1939.
Lerner, The Concept of Monopoly and the Measurement of Monopoly Power, Review of Economic Studies, June 1934.
(Possibly also Rothschild, Economica, February 1942, and Bain, ibid, February 1943).
Buchanan, Advertising Expenditures: A Suggested Treatment, J.P.E., August 1942.
Marschak, Neumann and Morgenstern on Static Economics, Journal of Political Economy, April 1948 (reprinted in Cowles Commission Papers No. 13).
Ellis (ed.), Survey of Contemporary Economics, Ch. 1 (Haley).
National Bureau of Economic Research, Cost Behavior and Price Policy (Sections in Chs. 9-11).

 

  1. The Nature of the General Equilibrium Approach

The coexistence (for methodological reasons) of two types of General Equilibrium approach. Difficulties arising from this. Characterization of the general theory of allocation, given the level of aggregate activity; and of the theory of the determinants of aggregate activity. Brief discussion of the first (the second will presumably be left to the Spring Term).

Readings:

Stigler, Theories of Production and Distribution, Chapter on Walras.
Leontief, Output, Employment, Consumption and Investment, Q.J.E., February 1944.
(Probably also assignments in Phelps-Brown, The Framework of the Pricing System).

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Econ. 202B (Spring Term) [1950-51]

Employment Theory (including introduction to National Income Concepts) and the Theory of Distribution

The list of readings is not final. It will be adjusted to the classroom discussion. Some readings will be assigned, others recommended.

I

Introductory discussion of the changing content of concepts expressing the “net” yield of economic activity. References to Quesnay, Smith (W. of N. Book II Chs. 2 and 3), Ricardo (Principles Ch. 26), Marx, Fisher (Nat. of Cap. and Int. Ch. 7), Pigou (Ec. of Welfare, Book I Chs. 1-8).

 

II

Determinants of aggregate output and employment in terms of “savings-investment” concepts such as the Wicksellian, Robertsonian, Keynesian. Translation of the analysis into terms of contemporary national income concepts. The savings-investment approach and the velocity approach. The search for links between value theory and the aggregative approach.

Readings:

Keynes, General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money; and The Ex-ante Theory of the Rate of Interest, Economic Journal, December 1937.
Ellis, (ed.), Survey of Contemporary Economics, Ch. 2; Ch. 8
Lange, The Rate of Interest and the Optimum Propensity to Consume (Readings in Business Cycle Theory).
Robertson, Saving and Hoarding (Economic Journal, September 1933).
Survey of Current Business, July 1947 Supplement.
Angell, Investment and Business Cycles (Chs. 9 and 11 and appendix on income velocity.

 

III.

Bearing of national income concepts on welfare problems. How near can we get to a directly relevant welfare judgment by using “objective” data of this sort? The main qualifications (changes in tastes, distribution, working conditions, natural resources, difficulties inherent in “net” income concepts, etc.). Long-run trends.

Readings:

Pigou, The Economics of Welfare, Part I, Chs. 1-8.
Fisher, The Nature of Capital and Income, Ch. 7.
The Hicks-Kuznets discussion in Economica, May 1940; February, May and August 1948 (only specific sections will be covered)
Kuznets, National Product Since 1869 (sections relating to long-run trends in terms of “overlapping decades”).

 

IV

The statistically distinguished income shares (their short- and long-run behavior); the problem of the functional shares proper.

Readings:

Annual Report of the Council of Economic Advisers (sections in text and appendix relating to distribution in terms of compensation of employees, income of individual owners, corporate profits, etc.)
Fisher, The Theory of Interest, Chs. 5-11.
Boehm-Bawerk, The Positive Theory of Capital, Book V (mainly Chs. 3-5).
Robertson, Mr. Keynes and the Rate of Interest (Readings in the Theory of Income Distribution).
Hicks, Value and Capital, Ch. 12.
Hicks, The Theory of Wages, Ch. 5.
Fellner, Competition Among the Few, Ch. 10, and pp. 311-328).
Knight, Capital and Interest; and Monetary Policies and Full Employment, pp. 152-166 (Readings in the Theory of Income Distribution).
Knight, Risk, Uncertainty and Profit, Ch. 7.
Schumpeter, The Theory of Economic Development, Ch. 4.; and references to Business Cycles.

 

V

The meaning of the functional-distribution problem on the one hand and of distribution by size of income on the other.

Readings:

Selma F. Goldsmith, Statistical Information on the Distribution of Income by Size in the United States, A.E.R., May 1950, Papers and Proceedings
Annual Report of the Council of Economic Advisers

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1), Box 5, Folder “Economics 1950-1951 (2 of 2)”.

Image Source: AEA portrait of William Fellner, Number 71 of a series of photographs of past presidents of the Association, in American Economic Review, Vol. 60, No. 1 (1970).

Categories
Chicago Courses Exam Questions Suggested Reading Syllabus

Chicago. Economic Doctrine, Modern Tendencies. Lange, 1942

“Modern Tendencies in Economic Economic Doctrine” was the title of the course taught by Oscar Lange in 1942 at the University of Chicago. According to the notes to the course taken by Norman Kaplan, the first two lectures appear to be Lange’s Apologia for the rationality postulate in modern economic theory that are then followed by lectures in which many themes of Hicks’ Value and Capital are addressed. Karl Marx, Max Weber and Talcott Parsons all get mention in his reflections on the rationality postulate. One can characterise Lange’s mission here and elsewhere as seeking to graft advances in economic theory from the marginal revolution that led to neoclassical economics to the trunk of (Marxian) classical economics.

______________________

If you find this posting interesting, here is the complete list of “artifacts” from the history of economics I have assembled. You can subscribe to Economics in the Rear-View Mirror below. There is also an opportunity for comment following each posting….

_____________________________________

 

[Course Announcement, Economics 303, Spring 1942]

303. Modern Tendencies in Economic Doctrine.—A critical study of controversial questions in the general body of economic theory, and of some modern developments of that theory. The fundamentals of the theory of general equilibrium, the approach to dynamic economics, the foundations of welfare economics, the place of economics among the social sciences and problems of methodology will be discussed. Prerequisite: Economics 301 or equivalent. Spring, Tu., Th., 3:30-5:30, Lange.

 

Source: University of Chicago, The College and the Divisions for the Sessions of 1941-1942. Announcements Vol. XLI, No. 10 (April 25, 1941), p 307.

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Spring, 1942

ECONOMICS 303
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Required

J. R. Hicks. Value and Capital

H. Schultz. Theory and Measurement of Demand, chap. vi

J. Dean. “Department-Store Cost Functions,” Studies in Mathematical Economic and Econometrics, p. 222.

F. Lindahl. Studies in the Theory of Money and Capital, part I [(handwritten marginal note: (Read along with dynamic part of Hicks)]

H. Makower and J. Marschak. “Money and the Theory of Assets,” Economica (Aug. 1938)

M. Kalecki. “The Principle of Increasing Risk,” Essays in the Theory of Economic Fluctuations

G. L. S. Shackle. “Expectations and Employment,” Econ. J. (Sept. 1939)

________________. “The Nature of the Inducement to Invest,” RES (Oct. 1940)

A. G. Hart. “Uncertainty and Inducements to Invest,” RES (Oct. 1940)

T. Scitovszky. “A Study of Interest and Capital,” Economica (Aug. 1940)

J. Tinbergen. “Econometric Business Cycle Research,” RES (Feb. 1940)

R. F. Harrod. “Essay in Dynamic Theory,” Econ. J. (March 1939)

R. F. Kahn. “Some Notes on Ideal Output,” Econ. J. (March 1935)

N. Kaldor. “Welfare Propositions and Inter-Personal Comparability of Utility,” Econ. J. (Sept. 1939)

J. R. Hicks. “The Foundations of Welfare Economics,” Econ. J. (Dec. 1939)

A. P. Lerner. “From Vulgar Political Economy to Vulgar Marxism,” JPE (Aug. 1939)

H. D. Dickinson. “A Comparison of Marxian and Bourgeois Economics,” The Highway 1937

Eric Roll. “The Social Significance of Recent Trends in Economic Theory,” Canadian J. of Economics (Aug. 1940)

 

Optional

F. H. Knight. Risk, Uncertainty and Profit

G. Tintner. “A Contributionof the Non-Static Theory of Choice,” QJE (Feb. 1942)

A. G. Hart. “Anticipations, Uncertainty and Dynamic Planning,” J. of Business of the U. of C. (Oct. 1940)

J. R. Hicks. “A Suggestion for the Simplification of the Theory of Money,” Economica (1935)

P. N. Rosenstein-Rodan. “The Co-ordination of the General Theories of Money and Prices,” Economica (Aug. 1936)

J. Tinbergen. A Method and its Application to Investment Activity, League of Nations

H. D. Dickinson. The Economics of Socialism

M. H. Dobb. Political Economy and Capitalism

A. P. Lerner. “Statics and Dynamics in Socialist Economics,” Econ. J. (June 1937)

Talcott Parsons. The Structure of Social Action, chap. iv

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ECONOMICS 303
Spring, 1942

 

I. Discuss briefly the relation of the analysis of consumers’ behavior in terms of indifference curves and in terms of traditional marginal utility theory. Explain

(1) the concept of the marginal rate of substitution and its relation to marginal utility.

(2) the relation between the law of diminishing marginal utility and the convexity (toward the origin) of indifference curves.

(3) the assumptions underlying measurability of utility.

(4) the consequences which dispensing with the hypothesis that utility is measurable has for the law of diminishing marginal utility and for the Edgeworth-Pareto distinction between substitute, independent and complementary commodities.

(5) whether the use of indifference curves and of the marginal rate of substitution requires that utility be immeasurable.

 

II. Explain the difference between “co-operant” factors of production in the sense of Pigou (i.e., “complementary” factors in the sense of Edgeworth-Pareto) and complementary factors in the sense of Hicks-Allen-Schultz. Show why in the case of only two factors used to produce a product both definitions are equivalent but cease to be so if more than two factors are used. What is the purpose of replacing in the theory of production “co-operancy” by complementarity in the Hicks-Allen sense?

 

III. Describe the way in which uncertainty of price expectations influences the production plans of firms and the consumption plans of households. Explain

(1) what features of uncertain price expectations influence the planning of sales and purchases.

(2) apply your explanation to the determination of forward prices.

(3) discuss how uncertainty influences the length of the economic horizon and how this accounts for the insensitiveness of current investment to changes in interest rates.

 

IV. State the conditions of stability of general economic equilibrium and try to link them up with the relation of changes in the quantity of money to changes in the demand for cash balances. Don’t worry if you cannot answer the second part of the question. If you can answer it, give an example of a behavior of the monetary system which will make general equilibrium unstable.

 

Source: University of Chicago Archives. Norman Kaplan Papers, Box 2, Folder 6.

Image source: Wikipedia/commons.